Meme

[icarus_chained]

From shadadukal

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 books, movies, or TV shows.

Five characters beginning with 'A':

Audrey Parker:
(Haven) My thoughts on Audrey Parker. Huh. Well, my first thought, way back in the pilot, was that she was adorable. Followed closely by a burgeoning love for her pretty unflappable pragmatism (Car goes over a cliff, almost with her in? No problem. Lets snark with the nice -and possibly a little dim- policeman). Then, I loved how she started just casually taking everything Haven could hit her with in stride. Nathan's Trouble? Not a problem. Smuggler fishes her naked out of the drink? Not a problem, though he's lucky she didn't really feel like shooting him. People who control the weather? Again, we can work with that. And then ... when we start getting to the things that really hit her, the things that hurt her and bring her down ... I kinda love how she keeps standing up regardless. How she decides she's here to save people, and that she's going to try, regardless of what happens to her in the process. As a hero, she's definitely one I can root for.

I also, it must be said, like Audrey Parker for the people that surround her. *grins* Particularly the main three. I just love the ... interactions, there. Heh.

Aaron Hotchner:
(Criminal Minds) My thoughts on this man? For the love of gods, someone keep him safe. No, seriously. I think every moment of this show that ripped my heart out of my chest involved him (or Emily, or Garcia), though I still think the crown goes to 'Mayhem' and him with his hands buried in someone's back, screaming for help that won't fucking come. But. You know. Also all of S5, and quite a lot of S6, where he appears to be nursing a very, very quiet, and entirely understandable, deathwish (that whole season, if there was a burning building to run into, or a hostage negotiation about to go wrong, Hotch was right there, wasn't he?), and every time Jack says something so fucking innocent about how his Dad is a hero, or how he wishes for his mom to look after him, and Hotch just ... hitches, and ... Holy shit, this man kills me. I love him to pieces, and he's so damn strong, and pretty awesome to boot, but for the love of mercy, someone protect him. Please. For me. Just ... put him somewhere safe, and punch out the next person who wants him to do something that's gonna break him.

*sighs* Not that he'd let them, of course. But, you know. A girl can dream.

Alfred Pennyworth:
(DC Comics) Old love, this. In more ways than one ;) But Alfred ... He's strong, and quiet, and sarcastic, and a servant but never servile, and one of the few people on the planet who will call Bruce/Batman an idiot to his face. *grins* And then there's all the lovely hints at his backstory across media. Alfred was something British and badass in his heyday (not that he isn't still, of course). My favourite theory, given current timeframe, being something secret and Cold War-esque, mostly so he can look disapprovingly down his nose at James Bond, and possibly have a crossover backstory involving those Men From UNCLE. *grins, shrugs* Or J'onn, but that's another story. Alfred is just ... calm, and discrete, and makes a mean cup of tea, and is about the only thing holding the Bats together, and also a man who can quiet supermen with a word, and someone with a tantilisingly secret past, and just ... Just all round awesome, really.

I haven't seen him in quite a while. But I do rather miss him. Heh.

Artemus Gordon:
(Wild Wild West) Y'all know I love a trickster, right? *grins* Also Westerns. And spy shows. And lookee here, all of them at once. *grins happily* And Artie ... an actor, and a master of disguise, and a spy, and an inventor, and the biggest damn trickster I've ever seen in a Western. He'll shoot a man, or brawl him out, but why bother when he can talk him into doing what he wants, whether that's walking off a train, killing his fellow criminals, opening this 'ere door, just for a moment ... I just, I love Artie. Calm, and unflappable, and slipping inside other people's faces like he was a shapeshifter, not just an actor, and crazy-prepared, and the genially grumbling about things, and walking invisibly into danger without turning a hair, and being the man with the quick hands for a switcheroo, and the man who can escape a jail by getting himself thrown out of it ... Not to mention, looking pretty damn nice in a red waistcoat. *grins*

I just ... he makes me happy. He's a sneaky-ass son of a bitch, and he makes me happy.

Aziraphale:
(Good Omens) Um. I'm not sure what to say, for the angel. Aside from, you know, he's nice and kickass, and deceptively quiet, and a bibliophile, and in the best partnership between an angel and a demon I've ever seen, and I love him. I love how he quietly, over centuries, decided where he and the party line diverged, and at the end of the day how he was perfectly willing to stand up for that divergence. And, not incidentally, us. Heh. And I love how, after centuries of listening to Crowley's armour-piercing questions about things like, you know, what the Plan was, and who did the right thing when, it's Aziraphale who stands up and asks that question of his superiors, and makes them stammer. *grins* I love the angel to pieces, I really do.

Though ... I have to admit the most badass character in that book, in my opinion, is another 'A'. *grins* Any witch who goes to the stake with a skirt full of roofing nails and gunpowder, and tells the village they're tardy about it, gets all the badass points in the world. Heh.

And for grav_ity:

Five characters beginning with 'R':

Rumpelstiltskin:
(Once Upon A Time) Okay. By this point, people will have realised that the Trickster thing is practically an obsession with me, right? But that aside ... He's so deliciously creepy, this man (beast? thing?). Mad, and unpredictable, and so very clever, and playing dangerous, dangerous games that no-one else can see. Weaving fairytales together with a golden touch and a chain of deals that people only ever figure out far too late, and (to judge by Mr Gold and the Sheriff's election) possibly uselessly. I'm thinking Regina made a massive, massive mistake, tangling with Rumpel, but ... He's also fragile enough that you fear for him. Fragile enough to be beaten, if you know just where to hit him, and that makes him all the more fascinating.

I'm not at all sure I should be rooting for him. I kinda of am anyway. *grins sheepishly*

David Rossi:
(Criminal Minds) *tilts head* You could argue that part of my love for Rossi is also related to the gamester/trickster aspect. Considering that if you push him wrong, Rossi will not physically destroy you. He will lure you right out into the open, and have you sign your prison sentance from your own mouth. *grins* But I also love how he is calm, and rational, and has a sense of humour (wow, those are getting thin on the ground in this show), and has apparently played Grand Theft Auto, and how he is possibly the only thing left that's keep Hotch sane and more or less functional. *smiles at him* And I love, love, how it's threatening his team that counts as pushing the wrong buttons. For a man who didn't know how this 'teamwork' thing worked when he showed up, he's taken to it with a rather subtle, vicious flare, and I love that.

Dave, never leave. You're a rare voice of reason and reality around here. Heh.

Rincewind:
(Discworld) *smiles* Rincewind, however, is something else entirely. He is a straight-up, self-admitted, unrepentant (as in, doesn't even understand why it's a problem) coward, whose first, second and last response to the slightest possibility of danger is to run the hell away. *grins* And yet, despite that, he has saved the Disc a truly alarming number of times, mostly because, when there is nowhere to run to, he can be quite shockingly brave. As in, face the most powerful magic user on the planet down with a half-brick-inna-sock, volunteer to stay behind in the Dungeon Dimensions in order to save a kid, quietly and unobtrusively ready another sock when the wizards look to be heading once more to war. That kind of brave. And I loved, loved that moment in Interesting Times when he's arguing with the revolutionary about causes worth dying for, and says there are none, because you've only one life, but you can pick up another 5 causes on any street corner. *shakes head* So cynical, and yet. "How can you live with a philosophy like that?" "Continuously!"

*grins* I do love me a streak of pragmatism, especially when I know the character will actually stand, despite it. Heh.

Rattigan:
(Basil of Baker Street) I was reminded of Great Mouse Detective recently (not that I ever forgot, but, you know). And there are times when what you want out of life is an incredibly dysfunctional (and adorable) detective, a long-suffering and loyal companion, and an incredibly hammy and sinister baddie, played by Vincent Price in fine cackling form. *grins* He's just ... You just can't touch him. From the evil laughs, to the turn-on-a-dime switching between urbane and unhinged, to the gloriously over the top death-traps, to the villain song, to the part at the end where all pretence to civilisation just sheers away and what remains is something truly frightening ... Rattigan was incredible. Basil could be annoying (you could understand Dawson's temper, sometimes), but that moment when you see him, tiny and injured and frail against the monster Rattigan's become, facing him regardless, that's when you cheer for him.

*grins* All the best heroes need a superlative villain. And Basil had the world's greatest rat. *snickers*

Nicholas Rush:
(Stargate Universe) Huh. Rush ... Rush is just this grand wreck of a human being, peaking higher and higher into the vaults of insanity as he rushes along the edge of the universe. He's broken and spiteful and vicious and devious, and utterly insane, and has a ruthless pragmatic streak practically unparalleled in the show, and an annoying tendancy to be right despite this (most of the things he tells them to do turn out, at the end of the episode, to have been exactly the things they needed to have done), and, somewhere underneath all that, he's a real man who was broken to pieces by a choice he'd made, and trying desperately to make what he does worth it (I'm almost positive the only reason he clings so much to Destiny is because he left Gloria to die for her, and that has to be worth it, now, he has to make it worth that choice). And ... In a black, bitter sort of way, I just love how he endures, and perseveres, and keeps coming back, not so much out of a desire to live, but out of a desire to spite those who hurt him.

Rush is just ... awesome to watch, and so painful to be near. I kinda love him. Heh.