Meme sheep

[tree_and_leaf]

Why not - this is a deserving classic. Courtesy, this time round, of dolorous_ett

Name a character from one of my fandoms, and I'll give you either:

(a) three facts about them from my personal canon/fanon,
(b) a reason he/she sucks,
(c) a reason he/she is awesomecakes,
(d) five things that never happened to that character, or
(e) five people that character never fell in love with and why.

For the purposes of this exercise, my fandoms can be defined as Doctor Who (including SJA but not including Torchwood), Harry Potter, Narnia, the Wimseyverse, "Master and Commander", Arthur Ransome, Star Trek: TOS and DS9, John Buchan, Dalziel and Pascoe (bookverse only, unless you count my belief that the TV characters have been gradually replaced by pod people) and Wolfram von Eschenbach (just to be pretentious). I also tentatively append the Vorkosiverse, as I haven't read all of canon yet. I would like to add Hermann Kant's "Die Aula", but I think I am in a fandom of one on that count (though one day I might crack and reveal my theory as to why canon as it stands doesn't stack up, and what conclusions we might draw from this - other than that our viewpoint character is charming, but ultimately a self-centred idiot, if not something worse).

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Sgt Edgar Wield, Dalziel & Pascoe

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Not TNG? I guess maybe it doesn't have as much fanfic...

[tree_and_leaf]

I just like the other two better, and am more familiar with the canon (for TOS, courtesy of James Blish, because I had the short story adaptations as a kid, and just about read them to pieces. I've yet to find an adaptation of anything televisual or film based that's as good).

Actually, I've read strangely little fanfic for any form of Trek - probably still in single figures.

[tree_and_leaf]

Five things that never happened to Wieldy:

1. He never bought a car; they were just too strongly associated with work and being on duty. Though he did borrow Edwin's when the need arose.

2. He never told the Fat Man how glad he was that that he was his boss, because he'd never be allowed to live something as soft as that down. But Wield's been a copper a long time, and even if Dalziel sometimes looked like a monster to Ellie or Peter, he knows how bloody lucky he was that Andy never cared who you fancied, as long as you did a good job. It could have been very different.

3. He's never - well, not since he was a confused teenager - wished to be anything other than what he is, though he'd often wished the world was less hostile, but sometimes he looks at Rosie playing with her dog, and feels a slight pang of regret that he'll never have a kid.

4. He never did quite convince Edwin that a house is not the same as a stockroom.

5. He never took to religion, though he did take to going to Enscombe Church now and again (because it was part of village life, and the vicar and his wife were nice people who deserved support, and no, Edwin, it was nothing to do with the fact that said vicar suited a cassock...)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Diana Villiers?

[ETA: But not with spoilers beyond TReason's Harbour!]

[tree_and_leaf]

c) Because she is indomitable, even when very ill indeed with sea-sickness.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Mary, Buchan's Hannayverse

Peggy Blackett

[tree_and_leaf]

Mary is brilliant, not just because she is brave and resourceful, but because she never, ever lets Dick get away with trying to be protective of her when she's just as tough as he is. (One of the reasons that Dick is brilliant is that he accepts this, even when it goes against the grain).

Peggy is quite tough to know anything about, because she's probably the character we see least of - I think we see more from Bridget's point of view than hers! Nancy casts a long shadow... She's great because she keeps up with Nancy even when scared (though I do wish we knew more of her than a fear of thunder and generally being not-quite-as-awesomely-competent-as-Susan).

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Ellie Pascoe!

[caulkhead.livejournal.com]

*icon love*

[tree_and_leaf]

Ellie is awesome because of her RPF Odyssey fanfiction. Absolutely the best bit of 'Arms and the Women'!

[trude.livejournal.com]

Nymphadora Tonks, HP.

[tree_and_leaf]

Tonks was rather good at potions, despite her clusminess, and never (much) minded the nasty things Snape said to her about her clumsiness - fair enough, potions classrooms can be dangerous. On the other hand, she really hated the way he picked on weaker students.

One of the reasons she never became a prefect was not just schoolgirl naughtiness, but because she talked back to teachers who she thought were being unfair.

Dumbledore had his doubts about how happy she'd be at the ministry, for that very reason.

[sacred-sarcasm.livejournal.com]

Rev Martin (Maturin's friend who went disagreeable when he got rich)
Or Sylvia or Eilunedd from the Wimseyverse.

Shockinginly late, I know

[tree_and_leaf]

Well, I could cheat with Martin and say 'he sucks because he went disagreeable when he went rich', but he was awesome when he was an impoverished naturalist...

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Reepicheep?

I had quite forgotten about this...

[tree_and_leaf]

Reepicheep is awesome because he's such a parfait gentil knight - not just in the swashbuckling stuff, but in the kindness he shows to Eustace when he's been dragoned - but is nevertheless hot-headed, and touchy about the fact that he's so much smaller than anything else. Somehow it makes his character all the more loveable. He's Galahad, but with warm blood...

[themolesmother.livejournal.com]

Ron Weasley.

MM

[tree_and_leaf]

Ron is awesome because he has all sorts of character flaws - he's inclined to jealousy, he's inclined to take his assumptions for granted, and he has a raging inferiority complex - but he's loyal, brave, sharper than he thinks, though in a very grounded way, and he keeps going even when he messes up, which is possibly what I admire most in people.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Wimseyverse:
Sir Impey Biggs
Mr.Murbles
Dian de Momerie

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

Do you think you could manage Cordelia Naismith-Vorkosigan?

[tree_and_leaf]

There are times, I must admit, when I find Cordelia's Betan wisdom a bit much, I will always love her for the moment when, having done her Judith and Holofornes bit at the end of Barrayar, she marches in with the usurper's head in a bag and announces that she's been shopping...

I also love the 'theists are so ruthless' conversation at the end of the first book (have temporarily gone scatty), but that's more a Reason Why I Love the Emperor than why I love Cordelia.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

On the last day on which I could enjoy a staff discount at the OUP shop, I bought the World's Classics edition of Parzival. I've still not read it, I confess, but consulting Book I, I present for your consideration...

...Gahmuret.

Just found this again...

[tree_and_leaf]

Gahmuret is awful because of his girl-in-every-port attitude to women; on the other hand, without that we wouldn't have a plot...

[snorkackcatcher]

Vedek Bareil.

[harriet-wimsey.livejournal.com]

Gherkins!

[tree_and_leaf]

Three things about Gherkins

He was actually a bit in love with Harriet; it wasn't just put on for his uncle. But he'd never have articulated it; she was way out of his league, and anyway, Bunter would have had his liver if he'd done anything to hurt Uncle Peter.

He kept up his incunabula collecting, in a quiet way. He wasn't just spending his income on girls and drink and telegraph poles at Oxford... He would have got a third, but in the viva, an examiner got him on to the subject of incunabula, and as a result he scraped a decent second.

He died in the war (heroically, after doing great things for the RAF). I don't like this, much, but I'm afraid I'm convinced of it.