Ten Favourite Characters, Part Two.

[rionaleonhart]

Here's the second of three entries running through my ten favourite characters of all the time! Caveats: I'm only including characters I've loved for at least ten years, and I've almost certainly forgotten someone essential. I'm going to kick myself when I remember them.

In case you missed it and you're curious, here's the first entry, featuring Elena Fisher, Joshua Kiryu, Squall Leonhart and Light Yagami.


Ellie, The Last of Us


Who is this character and why do you love them? 'Angry disaster' has always been one of my favourite character types. Ellie is an angry, traumatised mess. She's prickly and struggles with letting people get close, but she loves hard when someone slips past her defences. She makes terrible decisions and even worse puns. I became so attached to her while escorting her in The Last of Us; her curiosity, determination and rebellious streak were such a bright spot in a world full of people who'd given up.
Do you ship this character with anyone? I don't think I passionately ship Ellie with anyone, but Ellie/Riley is very cute, Ellie/Abby has interesting potential, and I like the idea of Ellie, Dina and Jesse working out some sort of tentative, awkward polyamorous arrangement.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Huh, hard to decide! I've written a lot about Ellie. Maybe In Fainter Ink, in which Ellie, Dina and Jesse struggle to settle into a V-shaped polyamorous relationship. A lot of the commenters hated this fic, but it was a fic I wanted to exist; I'm glad I wrote it, even if it wasn't for everyone. I don't know if it's the best fic I've ever written about Ellie, but the negative reactions made me strangely protective of it.
Are there any similar characters you love? Ellie and Abby are very much presented as two sides of the same coin in The Last of Us, Part II, and I'm fond of Abby as well. I could list all the angry disasters I love, but we'd be here all day!
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? I remember being really nervous that The Last of Us, Part II might damage my love of Ellie! I'm pleased to report that I absolutely still love her after playing it. She makes some truly atrocious decisions and does a lot of murdering, but, let's be honest, that's not the sort of thing that's ever made me like a character less.


James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2


Who is this character and why do you love them? I spoiled myself pretty thoroughly for Silent Hill 2 before I actually played it. I read analyses, transcripts, fanfiction. None of it told me how fond of James Sunderland I'd end up becoming. But, when I was playing the game myself - when I was personally trapped and terrified in the town - the character I was playing as felt like my only ally. James and I went through Silent Hill together, and it turns out that that's a pretty intense bonding experience! It helps that the inside of his head is an absolute mess in ways I find really interesting. (I've just remembered that Silent Hill 2 is being remade! I have no idea how to feel about that! Maybe I should at least check it out.)
Do you ship this character with anyone? The relationship between James and his wife Mary is unbearably tragic and makes me very emotional. It was one of the first pairings I ever passionately shipped.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? I've written a ludicrous number of ficlets about James Sunderland, but most of them were written when I was sixteen, so, I'll be honest, they're not my best work. I'm going to say my favourite fic about James is like nails in my feet, one of my more recent Silent Hill 2 fics, in which I attempted to express all my intense feelings about James and Mary.
Are there any similar characters you love? Silent Hill 2 was a very formative game for me, and I think a lot of my favourite character types can be traced back to James Sunderland. I love characters who make terrible mistakes and are overcome by self-loathing; I love characters who are trying to atone for things that can't ever be undone; I love characters who undergo horrible experiences they'll never recover from or be believed about; I love characters who can't trust their own perception of reality. Mike Munroe of Until Dawn is very different from James in demeanour, but he hits three of these four points. Macbeth of the BBC ShakespeaRe-Told adaptation I got weirdly obsessed with in my teens, in which Macbeth is a chef who murders his way into restaurant ownership, also has a lot of overlap.
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? In a surprising parallel to Light Yagami, who is otherwise a very different character, James Sunderland is a person who fucked up unbelievably, couldn't handle it, and ended up rewriting his own reality to create a world in which he hadn't actually fucked up. As they're both on this list of my favourites, that's apparently what I'm into in a character! Denial remains a theme I'm interested in to this day, and it crops up in a lot of my fanfiction.


Jeff Winger, Community


Who is this character and why do you love them? Jeff is charming, cocky, sarcastic, self-obsessed, soft-hearted, low in self-control and an absolute psychological disaster, and it's an extremely fun combination. He wants to be a cool, selfish, uncaring loner, and I love watching that desire clash against his conscience, his fear of abandonment and his intense love for everyone in his study group.
Do you ship this character with anyone? 'It's called chemistry; I have it with everyone,' Jeff said once, and he's right. I ship Jeff with pretty much everyone in the study group, himself included. But I have a particular weakness for Jeff/Annie; the two of them have absolutely ludicrous chemistry. The pairing hadn't occurred to me until 'Debate 109' raised the possibility of them kissing, and suddenly I had never wanted anything more.
What's your favourite fic you've written about this character? Maybe Despair 101, an incredibly ill-advised Community/Danganronpa crossover. I really enjoyed writing Jeff's reaction when Annie tried to stab him. Sorry, Jeff.
Are there any similar characters you love? I said once that Jeff Winger is the character Jack Shephard of Lost would be if Jack had been written for a sitcom, and I stand by that. They're both a mess of father issues and bad decisions. They both have intense feelings for the people they've somehow ended up a leader to, and they don't entirely know how to deal with those feelings. I'm... not going to write Jack Shephard/Annie Edison, but I'm forced to admit that it crossed my mind while I was thinking about this.
Anything else you'd like to say about this character? I mentioned previously that only one character on this list of my ten favourites had never intentionally killed anyone. If you were wondering, it's Jeff. He's not the most moral character on the list, but he's definitely the character with the lowest bodycount.

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

I feel like Jeff would be very pleased to be on this list. And a bit “Why am I not number one?”, but not nearly as much as Light would.

I also like Jeff being the exception by virtue of not having intentionally killed anyone. And that even with the sitcom protagonist, you have to put “intentionally” in there to be accurate.

[rionaleonhart]

Guys, you're not number one because there's no number one! You're in 'I happened to get your entries finished in this order' order, not order of preference!

(Somehow, I feel Jeff would still manage to be slightly annoyed he's not number one regardless.)

And that even with the sitcom protagonist, you have to put “intentionally” in there to be accurate.

Yep! I was about to say that only one of these characters hadn't killed anyone, and then I thought 'w-wait, I think I need an "intentionally" in there.'

[felis]

Ellie <333

I already loved her during and after the first game, but similarly to your attitude with your story (sorry about the negative comments!), I got really protective of her after the second game. So many people were so harsh on her, especially on her decision to leave the place she'd found with Dina, and I just thought, nope, that makes total sense for her character, I love this arc, I love her, and what do you mean, the end is super dark and depressing, did we watch the the same ending? ... anyway. I clearly don't have opinions on this or anything. :P Either way, <3 Ellie and her relationships with everyone, starting with Joel and not ending with Abby.

[rionaleonhart]

I got really protective of her after the second game.

Aww! That makes a lot of sense to me. I can see why a lot of people didn't like the direction the second game took, but the Ellie of Part II is still the character I fell in love with.

what do you mean, the end is super dark and depressing, did we watch the the same ending?

Yes! I was expecting the ending to be horrendous and was pleasantly surprised to find some hope there. She's burnt everything down, but I was so, so proud of her for managing to let go at last. Even if we leave her at a low point, she's finally reached a place where she might be able to start climbing up.

[shamanicshaymin]

I love characters who make terrible mistakes and are overcome by self-loathing; I love characters who are trying to atone for things that can't ever be undone; I love characters who undergo horrible experiences they'll never recover from or be believed about; I love characters who can't trust their own perception of reality.

Good god, is that the biggest mood. I've been obsessing over LISA: The Painful RPG and Brad Armstrong hits every one of those boxes. ("Did I... do the right thing?") I love my flawed fucked up messes of characters. ;;

[rionaleonhart]

I only know about LISA: The Painful from watching hbomberguy's video essay on it, but it sounds like an interesting game! An interesting and unbearably stressful game that I don't think I could ever play myself.

[shamanicshaymin]

It certainly lives up to its name, lol. If it wasn't for its absurd sense of humor, I don't think I could bear playing it in the first place, haha. Which in turn makes it a very hard game to rec to people (Me: "LISA is wonderful! Anyway, here's a mile long trigger list.") but hey, my loss. XD

[apiphile]

A lot of the commenters hated this fic,

Have they not considered shutting the fuck up

[rionaleonhart]

Most of the negative comments were from people who either don't like poly fic in general or didn't want to read about these specific characters in a polyamorous relationship. Which is fair enough, but I do have to wonder why they read the fic in the first place, given that I thought I'd made it fairly clear in the tags, the summary and the author's note that it was about polyamory.

[apiphile]

That is absolutely baffling. Were they... mad the fic existed at all???

[rionaleonhart]

Yep! The first comment I got said 'Ok dude, no. Just. No. this is just wrong ok?' and told me it was 'too soon for this kind of story', and I've been puzzling over it ever since. Really makes my fic sound a lot more horrifying than it is. The second game had come out two weeks earlier; I'm not sure what would have been an acceptable time to post it.

One person demanded to know 'Why is it that these kind of stories pop up so often where queer women are involved?' - the story in question is about a canonically bisexual woman being involved with both a man and a woman, which... does not make her not queer? She even has romantic relationships with both characters in canon; the only difference was that I was writing about the relationships coexisting simultaneously.

[apiphile]

Okay that first one is... weird.

The second one makes me pull a lemon-sucking face and ask why everyone's allowed to see themselves in fiction except bisexual poly women.

[militarypenguin]

You know I was waiting with bated breath for James's appearance on your list! Silent Hill 2 was also a formative game for me and, god, if I made a string board of my favorite characters, most of them probably would be connected back to James in one form or another, now that I think about it.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm delighted that you were waiting for James! Of course he was going to be on the list; I could never let you down.

I also love the idea of a string board of favourite characters. Mine would probably look similar! Everything spirals out from James Sunderland. I was going to say 'there'd be a separate section on my board for the ordinary, well-meaning teenagers who go through horrific experiences', but then I looked harder at the 'go through horrific experiences' part and, oh, look, it's James Sunderland again.

[sholio]

Awwwww, Jeff. <33333 (I did laugh at the "*intentionally* killed anyone" though. Amazing.)

[rionaleonhart]

He's such a great character! And he almost hasn't killed anyone.

[slippery_fish]

I said once that Jeff Winger is the character Jack Shephard of Lost would be if Jack had been written for a sitcom, and I stand by that.

I love both Jeff and Jack and never thought about this before, and now I'm all 'huh, kinda makes sense'. :D Because yeah, they are fucking intense about 'their' people though I think Jack is more honest about it than Jeff though they both carry quite the baggage when it comes to caring about people.

And for Jack, it feels more like a chosen duty while Jeff is more like 'Okay, if I have to... and I kinda have to.'

[rionaleonhart]

I'm glad it rings true! They feel like very different characters at first glance, but, when you look closer, there's a lot of common ground there.

Because yeah, they are fucking intense about 'their' people

I love this way of putting it. They really are!