(no subject)
A meme I got from Versipellis!
1. Comment with "Mischief managed!"
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 books, movies, or TV shows.
I was given 'T'!:
1. Tim Bisley (Spaced): Spaced is one of my most favourite sitcoms, ever and, obviously, Tim is one of the main characters. One of the things I like about Spaced is its unabashed weirdness and nerdiness and Tim kind of exemplifies that. Along with this, Spaced is kind of about that sort of weird space in your twenties where you're definitely not a teenager, but you're sure you're not a proper grown up, yet, but it seems like you should be, all of a sudden. This is certainly where Tim and Daisy are, and one line in particular comes to mind near the beginning where Tim is said to be 'supplementing a fifty quid he got designing an album cover with his proper job in a comic shop'. It kind of introduces that kind of viewpoint where he has this idea of what he does compared to what he actually does and it's a sort of optimistic thing that may or may not work out for him, which is sort of relevant to your mid-twenties. In general, Tim is likeable as a regular young nerdy guy, but in a way that just is rather than aggrandised or condemned. I want to say more on Spaced in general, but that's mainly for another post.
2. Tamaki Suoh (Ouran High School Host Club): Ouran is one of the view titles on my list of favourite anime/manga that has a fluffy/humorous tone. It's a parody, of course, but a nice, affectionate one, and
slides nicely into the shoujo genre of you want it to. Tamaki is both narcissistic and stupid, but also very, very sweet. He could be buffoonish in a comically unlikable sort of way, but Hatori took the time to make him work as a male lead as well as a comedy figure. As the whimsical king of the hosts, he's both a clown and a romantic and it's both obvious why the girls love him and baffling to watch his corny act. One of the nicest things about him, however, is that this really isn't an act and he really does enjoy pleasing people. Ouran has its dramatic moments amid the comedy and this does impact Tamaki's characterisation. His history is cliched but that's kind of the point and the fact that he's so eager to please is given a sad bent when you realise what his relationship with his family is like. Tamaki is a seemingly empty headed pretty boy, but that's the point. He's innocent and sweet and more of a pollyanna-type than a secretly-angsty-type, and that makes him strong. I'm never sure whether I like him or Kyouya best, but Tamaki's sweetness and innocence really make him appealing to me. And, obviously, he's very, very pretty.
3. Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog): Out of these five characters, Tails is the first that I encountered, of course. Sonic was one of the first game series I played and, as such, it has a place in my heart and can't be shifted by any amount of glitch-filled 3D games or bizarrely over-invested fans. Tails is a two-tailed fox that made his debut in the second game of the classic series. For that game, he is playable, but mostly people think of him as following Sonic around and getting in the way. He can fly, but the player cannot make him do this until Sonic 3 and Knuckles. His main draw here, then, is that he's cute and Sonic having a little fanboy is somewhat endearing, and it means that the game has a two-player option, even in the same game, itself. The flying mechanism makes him pretty fun to play in the games where he has it. Things took a fairly bizarre turn in Sonic Adventure 2 when he was given a robo machine, and that was largely to make him the good counterpart for the now playable Doctor Robotnik/Eggman. One aspect of Tails' character is that he is the smart guy and he's a whizz with gadget s and can fix the aeroplane which, rather incongruously, belongs to Sonic, so it's not really unbelievable to believe that he could do that. The question is more why he would, since his tails are perfectly serviceable. His tails are his main physical aspect and I have seen some interpretations on how they work. It seems, though, that they would twist and untwist.
4. Touta Matsuda (Death Note): Okay, using his first name is cheating a bit, but, to be fair, even under M, he might not get chosen, since I could have filled this challenge with Death Note characters, if that had been the case. Matsuda. He wasn't, I admit, a character that I noticed much to begin with. With L and Light and, later, Mello, he fell a little by the wayside until I started looking into the fandom and started taking more notice of him. He is, of course, quite a nice mutual character. He's loyal to his job and loyal to the chief and he really, really wants to do good. Nobody in Death Note really wants to please quite like he does (even Misa only wants to please Light). However, he's also conflicted about Kira; he knows, fundamentally, that killing huge portions of the world's population is wrong but he also wonders if the world wouldn't be better off without all of those criminals. This is pretty interesting, since he's the only one that Light make have seduced over to his side. If Death Note had more emotional depth, we might have seen more of this. Light does know this, but one of the most beautiful things is that it it's far too late by the time it comes up and, in the end, what Kira does doesn't make up for the damage that he's caused. It's his moment, there at the end, more than it is Near's and even more than it is Ryuk's. Up until that point, too, he's been the plucky comic relief, so it's even more of a surprise. Like Misa, he's not quite as stupid as he appears to be at first. He's plucky even without the comic relief and while it is stated that his job is the result of nepotism, it seems unlikely to me that Soichiro Yagami would buy into that. I think it's more likely that Yagami clearly recognises something in him, even if nobody else does. The climax in the Yellow Box also shows that he is a very good marksman, and would probably have been a better shot with a clearer head. Since he is one of the few characters that survives, perhaps he learned to have that clearer head in the future. I actually want to say way more about Matsuda, but this is getting pretty long.
5. Tristan/Tristran Thorn (Stardust): Of all the Neil Gaiman works that I've read, Stardust is probably the one that can most be called straight-up fantasy. It's set in a Victo-arthurian world, and there's witches and princesses stuff. Tristran is a young everyman protagonist who is both curious and in love and he has connections and is special in a way that he didn't know he was. He's naive and can be a bit irritating, especially when he tries to force a star to walk back to the woman he loves to prove that love to her. Of course, the story leads him on a journey that results in him growing and becoming a better person. The sort of person that he is is one that we're supposed to see the world through the eyes of, rather than find a source of entertainment in himself. This, likely, is the point. Since Stardust is aimed at a younger crowd, he's younger than a lot of Gaiman's other protagonists such as Shadow from American Gods. Since he's only about eighteen, the way he behaves does make sense and it's as much a story of his coming of age than anything else.
Oops, some of those were a bit long. :/
1. Comment with "Mischief managed!"
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 books, movies, or TV shows.
I was given 'T'!:
1. Tim Bisley (Spaced): Spaced is one of my most favourite sitcoms, ever and, obviously, Tim is one of the main characters. One of the things I like about Spaced is its unabashed weirdness and nerdiness and Tim kind of exemplifies that. Along with this, Spaced is kind of about that sort of weird space in your twenties where you're definitely not a teenager, but you're sure you're not a proper grown up, yet, but it seems like you should be, all of a sudden. This is certainly where Tim and Daisy are, and one line in particular comes to mind near the beginning where Tim is said to be 'supplementing a fifty quid he got designing an album cover with his proper job in a comic shop'. It kind of introduces that kind of viewpoint where he has this idea of what he does compared to what he actually does and it's a sort of optimistic thing that may or may not work out for him, which is sort of relevant to your mid-twenties. In general, Tim is likeable as a regular young nerdy guy, but in a way that just is rather than aggrandised or condemned. I want to say more on Spaced in general, but that's mainly for another post.
2. Tamaki Suoh (Ouran High School Host Club): Ouran is one of the view titles on my list of favourite anime/manga that has a fluffy/humorous tone. It's a parody, of course, but a nice, affectionate one, and
slides nicely into the shoujo genre of you want it to. Tamaki is both narcissistic and stupid, but also very, very sweet. He could be buffoonish in a comically unlikable sort of way, but Hatori took the time to make him work as a male lead as well as a comedy figure. As the whimsical king of the hosts, he's both a clown and a romantic and it's both obvious why the girls love him and baffling to watch his corny act. One of the nicest things about him, however, is that this really isn't an act and he really does enjoy pleasing people. Ouran has its dramatic moments amid the comedy and this does impact Tamaki's characterisation. His history is cliched but that's kind of the point and the fact that he's so eager to please is given a sad bent when you realise what his relationship with his family is like. Tamaki is a seemingly empty headed pretty boy, but that's the point. He's innocent and sweet and more of a pollyanna-type than a secretly-angsty-type, and that makes him strong. I'm never sure whether I like him or Kyouya best, but Tamaki's sweetness and innocence really make him appealing to me. And, obviously, he's very, very pretty.
3. Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog): Out of these five characters, Tails is the first that I encountered, of course. Sonic was one of the first game series I played and, as such, it has a place in my heart and can't be shifted by any amount of glitch-filled 3D games or bizarrely over-invested fans. Tails is a two-tailed fox that made his debut in the second game of the classic series. For that game, he is playable, but mostly people think of him as following Sonic around and getting in the way. He can fly, but the player cannot make him do this until Sonic 3 and Knuckles. His main draw here, then, is that he's cute and Sonic having a little fanboy is somewhat endearing, and it means that the game has a two-player option, even in the same game, itself. The flying mechanism makes him pretty fun to play in the games where he has it. Things took a fairly bizarre turn in Sonic Adventure 2 when he was given a robo machine, and that was largely to make him the good counterpart for the now playable Doctor Robotnik/Eggman. One aspect of Tails' character is that he is the smart guy and he's a whizz with gadget s and can fix the aeroplane which, rather incongruously, belongs to Sonic, so it's not really unbelievable to believe that he could do that. The question is more why he would, since his tails are perfectly serviceable. His tails are his main physical aspect and I have seen some interpretations on how they work. It seems, though, that they would twist and untwist.
4. Touta Matsuda (Death Note): Okay, using his first name is cheating a bit, but, to be fair, even under M, he might not get chosen, since I could have filled this challenge with Death Note characters, if that had been the case. Matsuda. He wasn't, I admit, a character that I noticed much to begin with. With L and Light and, later, Mello, he fell a little by the wayside until I started looking into the fandom and started taking more notice of him. He is, of course, quite a nice mutual character. He's loyal to his job and loyal to the chief and he really, really wants to do good. Nobody in Death Note really wants to please quite like he does (even Misa only wants to please Light). However, he's also conflicted about Kira; he knows, fundamentally, that killing huge portions of the world's population is wrong but he also wonders if the world wouldn't be better off without all of those criminals. This is pretty interesting, since he's the only one that Light make have seduced over to his side. If Death Note had more emotional depth, we might have seen more of this. Light does know this, but one of the most beautiful things is that it it's far too late by the time it comes up and, in the end, what Kira does doesn't make up for the damage that he's caused. It's his moment, there at the end, more than it is Near's and even more than it is Ryuk's. Up until that point, too, he's been the plucky comic relief, so it's even more of a surprise. Like Misa, he's not quite as stupid as he appears to be at first. He's plucky even without the comic relief and while it is stated that his job is the result of nepotism, it seems unlikely to me that Soichiro Yagami would buy into that. I think it's more likely that Yagami clearly recognises something in him, even if nobody else does. The climax in the Yellow Box also shows that he is a very good marksman, and would probably have been a better shot with a clearer head. Since he is one of the few characters that survives, perhaps he learned to have that clearer head in the future. I actually want to say way more about Matsuda, but this is getting pretty long.
5. Tristan/Tristran Thorn (Stardust): Of all the Neil Gaiman works that I've read, Stardust is probably the one that can most be called straight-up fantasy. It's set in a Victo-arthurian world, and there's witches and princesses stuff. Tristran is a young everyman protagonist who is both curious and in love and he has connections and is special in a way that he didn't know he was. He's naive and can be a bit irritating, especially when he tries to force a star to walk back to the woman he loves to prove that love to her. Of course, the story leads him on a journey that results in him growing and becoming a better person. The sort of person that he is is one that we're supposed to see the world through the eyes of, rather than find a source of entertainment in himself. This, likely, is the point. Since Stardust is aimed at a younger crowd, he's younger than a lot of Gaiman's other protagonists such as Shadow from American Gods. Since he's only about eighteen, the way he behaves does make sense and it's as much a story of his coming of age than anything else.
Oops, some of those were a bit long. :/