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qualapec · 8 years

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Favorite characters meme

@myheartgoesswimming tagged me in this!

“Post 10 of your favorite characters from different fandoms, in no particular order, and tag 10 people [if you want!] “

I’m a JERK who can’t help but rank my favorite characters,

Favorite male characters:

1. Jacob Frye Jacob had an absolutely unprecedented climb up my favorite characters list. He went from being this butch asshole in the trailers for AC:S to...I LOVE MY BI SON??? I don’t think I’ve purely identified with a character so much since Marian Hawke in DAII when I was a closeted 18 year old who didn’t think I’d ever come out. Like, I’m ultimately not too protective of my favorite dudes--I look at my list and I’m like, yeah, this is mostly garbage. Jacob is the one dude character who I have actually cried over people saying shit about him (I casually call Jacob garbage a lot, but not too long ago a good friend said “yeah, he fucks up everything. really everyone would be better off without him” and I cried harder than I thought I would).

I identify with Jacob because he’s a giant ADHD bisexual who messes up literally everything he does but still tries the best he can to be a good person and he’s someone who still legitimately cares about people who have hurt him deeply. At the same time, he’s not a queer character that wants to fully integrate with society either. He’s funny and loves his sister and she’s a better Assassin than he is. He’s a good person but his queerness isn’t clean--it’s rough and it hurts and it damages his relationships and it’s so real to me.

I’ve never felt happier about being bi and not totally good at things than the months after AC:S came out and Jacob was announced as canonically bisexual. Before that I’d been struggling a lot with the lesbians v. bi women thing, and Jacob just made me feel so good about myself and so hopeful. I love Jacob Frye.

2. Johannes Cabal I have never been more right about a character’s ultimate arc than I was with Cabal. He’s been on my list of faves for years, but the fifth book jettisoned him into second place among the guys. If he were canonically queer he and Jacob would probably be tied tbqh. I love this horrible man. I love his arc. Anyone who wants to write villains with a redemption should read these books. SPOILERS but I love how his arc isn’t about accepting things the way they are re: death. He never accepts the Bible, never goes to confession and gets his sins forgiven. He never gives up his desire for things to be changed and for the unfairness/injustice of death to be righted and his disbelief in religion as a savior. He never gives up his arrogance. He’s still really smart.

But by the end, he becomes a human who is worthy of having friends and is capable of doing the right thing and that means so much to me. I expected a giant Thing at the end where he did something truly villainous to show that he was Always That Way and Always Would Be, but it never happened. He slowly defeated evil within himself without even knowing it, and that matters to me.

END SPOILERS. The second trash wizard I ever fell in love with.

3. Loki (MCU). Oh, Loki. My queer rage analogue.

Some context: I saw Thor (2011) when my family was falling apart. I was mad, so mad. That scene when Loki confronts Odin was so profound to me--I read it as a coming out scene, and I know a lot of other queer folks did, too.

I’ve known I was bi since Dragon Age II, as dumb as that sounds. When I wanted nothing more than to romance both a dude and a lady. BUT I had planned to bury it. It was easier to just date men, so why not? When Loki was revealed as Canonically Bisexual, that was really when the word clicked for me. That was the moment I think I knew that word was truly inescapable for me.

Whoo boy. That scene in the Avengers when he shows up after creating a portal with the Tesseract and intends to tear the world apart...that’s the moment I realized how queer and angry I was. I was closeted and wanted to burn it ALL down. He would either win or be destroyed, and the fantasy of burning as I was was so satisfying to me--either way he was going to die as himself. I was sitting in the theatre and that was when I knew I had no choice but to come out. I was afraid. Anger was an easier feeling to have.

Loki. My reminder that I’ll take a queer villain over a Perfect Queer (TM) every day of the week and also for the rest of my life--I will never, ever care about a Perfect Queer, because that’s not what I am, that’s not the family I come from, that’s not the reality of my health or what I aspire to be. That rage gave me the courage to come out, and tbqh it gives me strength now.

4. Harry Dresden Harry is Trash Wizard Prime. I discovered him during a time when men were an absolute mystery to me--I didn’t grow up with many (any) good male role models. As a bi teenager, I started to notice men because that’s the thing girls attracted to men were socially supposed to do, and I realized I didn’t understand them.

I saw the cover for Dead Beat in a Barnes & Noble and I picked it up. He looked so dashing, so rogueish. And this chaotic good motherfucker is that. He cares about people and wants to do the best he can with his gift, even if he is imperfect, and that spoke to me as a teenager so much.

He was a male character who I felt safe with. Society hated him for his gift, and sometimes did its best to destroy him even while he was trying to be good (which, in retrospect, is one reason why I associate mages/wizards/witches with queerness). I felt like he was a man who would protect me as a girl who, at that time, thought of myself as het but who was very afraid of men (L O L. LOL. L O L. Biggest joke ever) and who had experienced trauma at male hands.

I felt deeply betrayed when, after Changes, he had intrusive thoughts about raping the women around him.

I don’t quite have words for how much that hurt. Cabal was never misogynist in quite that way, and Loki is a virulent misogynist, but in a way that strikes me as very real for some queer men (not okay, but A Thing That Actually Happens). And as someone with OCD who experiences damaging intrusive thoughts myself, I feel like should have understood.

I felt really betrayed when Harry’s character took that direction. It caught me by surprise. It was actually triggering for me--the message I got was “every man will hurt you” and I’ve spent years trying to unlearn that. I remember shaking after a certain chapter of the book after Changes. I remember thinking that Men Will Always Hurt Me if Harry would.

Recent books revealed it was the result of a demon in his head...but it still hurt a lot. I discovered those books when I needed a man to look up to, and I still feel like that trust was betrayed.

I wouldn’t really recommend The Dresden Files to any of my friends now--I still want them to read them to understand a very formative text for me. I love Harry Dresden. He is part of what made me, of what defined my morality. I love him. I want him to be part of a better story.

Also I will be 100% honest and say that his super cis straight dude descriptions of wanting to sleep with women really spoke to me as a young queer chick. I was really into “vagazzled” btw.

5. Cullen Rutherford WE HAVE ARRIVED AT THE OUTLIER.

Cullen has that Captain America vibe I usually can’t stand. He’s super lawful good and even upholds laws that he shouldn’t.

He’s also a drug addict who was deeply traumatized and needs his girlfriend to function (an ongoing theme with me). Even his very oppressive anger makes sense to me. It sucks, but I get it. That’s valid.

Also, I really hate it when people say his character arc made no sense. I’m sorry, those people flat out don’t understand narrative or think characters can escape their original packaging. Spoiler; that’s not an ‘arc’. Characters change, deal with it.

I think one thing I love about Cullen is that he was really, really tailored for women who are interested in men (note: not just Straight Women).

I think one of the biggest things for me is that he’ll do anything for the Inquisitor (his girlfriend). He was SUPPOSED to be bi via leaks from the company that made the game (if that was canon he’d be much higher on this list). But it does ultimately matter a lot to me that he was so specifically tailored to be a fantasy for women who are interested in men. He loves her. He will do almost anything for her. She helps him get over a serious addiction. Cullen taught (my bi/poly ass) about m/f narratives that I needed.

I guess I have a Thing for men who really need the women in their lives. Cullen gets the girlfriend role, and all the trauma that only men are usually allowed to have.

Honorable mentions:

Victor and Yuuri from Yuri on Ice. (If they had more canonical trauma, they would have lettered, and they may in the future. I love that Literally Wearing a Bi Flag Victor is a garbage human being who doesn’t understand feelings but still loves is boyfriend and doesn’t want that relationship to end. I love how Yuuri is an anxious gay baby.) Albert Wesker, a truly fine villain who was not done justice by those movies. Ned Wynert, who taught me a lot about writing characters from marginalized groups I am not a part of.

Favorite lady characters: 1. Marian Hawke. I almost don’t have words for how deeply formative Hawke is to me. She changed my life. I know she can be a different person no matter who plays her, but I think the things I fundamentally love about her are somehow universal.

For context on Marian Hawke--I was 18 and deeply closeted when I played DAII for the first time. I had committed to “never coming out” because I thought it would make my mom sad. I remember sitting in the uni library and thinking about Hawke and how bi aka queer (ADDITIONALLY poly) I was and I regret how that was the moment I decided I would only date men because it would be easier. That didn’t last. I didn’t know how much that would tear me up inside.

Hawke was the first gateway to my sexuality, but I thought I could avoid her message. I knew I wanted to date both men and women.

Hawke herself is...me. Granted, you can control some of her actions as the player, but she still fucks up in a lot of the same ways no matter which version of her you play. She still tries to do the best she can (sometimes that’s a lot, sometimes not a lot, sometimes it’s oppressive). She cares. I can’t remember if she or Cabal came into the Trash Wizard (or trash mage) #2 slot, but she’s right up there on my fave trash magician list.

Because she’s so deeply formative, she’s another character I can’t be rational about. I HATE with every fiber of my being that she’s not static/unchangeable. I partly hate dude!Hawke so much because there are no female characters like my take on Marian that even EXIST. Soft butch, bi, diplomatic, kinda funny, kinda mad.

She tries her best, just like I think I do. She fails a lot, even when she means well. My Marian is bi as fuck. She changed my life. I don’t know who I would be without her (I mean, probably still bi as fuck, but still). I love Marian Hawke.

2. Evie Frye. I’ll just say it: Evie Frye fixed my ability to write female characters.

I was feeling a lot of pressure from other female writers (sadly, even particularly other queer women) to write WOMEN’S NARRATIVES. I felt like those had to be about rape and weakness and strength in spite of that. THAT IS A NARRATIVE THAT MATTERS, however I either struggle to identify with it, or I over-identify with it and I’m afraid to walk to my car.

Evie isn’t that.

She’s perhaps the greatest Assassin in history, short of Altair or Ezio, who made the brotherhood what it is. She lives and breathes that tradition. She’s most powerful when she is unseen, and in that way, I always feel safe with her. She’s the rightful heir to the entire series, so I feel like she will always be safe.

I learned so much about how to write myself and what I wanted and what I think a lot of other women want even if it’s not part of The Discourse, through Evie Frye. She defies stereotypes about what it means to be “woman”. She’s treated no worse than Jacob by the narrative, and she’s arguably treated as the inheritor of the Assassin tradition and like her skills matter just a bit more. The narrative could do without Jacob (as much as I love him) but it couldn’t do without Evie. She’s just as powerful as he is.

That we get to see her as both a new adult and a middle aged women is extra important. The fact that she spends her later narrative hunting one of the most virulent men in history (Jack the Ripper) means a lot to me. She is most powerful in her prime, while Jacob burns out later on, and that ALSO matters a lot to me. Shitty men are afraid of her, not the other way around. There’s no narrative where she lets the think they could rape her to win; she just wins. (Again, nothing wrong with female characters who use their femininity that way, but Evie just kills those fuckers, and that’s what I need in my life of believing in self defense).

I love her. She loves her husband, she loves her brother. She’s prim and proper and perfectly tailors her outfits and knows how to strike a killing blow. Evie is about a different kind of resistance than Jacob, but she’s still about resistance. She’s the first female character I’ve seen, in literal years, who is allowed to exist beyond her own femininity. She’s just allowed to exist and be really cool. Evie also means a lot to me.

3. Leonie Barrow This song really sums up Leonie Barrow for me. /They see you as small and helpless, they see you as just a child/ Surprise when they find out that a warrior will soon run wild/. She starts out as so?? Small?? compared to the overall narrative of the Cabal books, which are steeped in angels and gods and Lovecraftian abominations from whom the very foundations of the universe were forged. She’s the Innocent Girl at first. Her femininity, her innocence, does matter, but it’s not what I thought it would be. And by the end, she’s a shotgun wielding master detective, who Cabal CANONICALLY trusts to make the same logical decisions he would.

She is willing to kill to defend her friends even if she doesn’t like it. She will stand against the darkness and be afraid but she will smile.

She’s also almost /definitely/ canonically bi at the end of the fifth book, short of the actual word being used. It’s not a plot spoiler, but it gives me life either way. She’s not the girlfriend, she’s not the Woman, she’s something else and she matters in her own way. Her potential is limitless, and I’m inspired by her every single day. People talk about Stever Rogers as their human ideal, but I guess Leonie Barrow is my comfortable alternative.

Leonie Barrow saves people by her empathy--and she’s also willing to wield a shotgun. Outside of a magical girl narrative, she and Elizabeth DeWitt are the purest versions of the ‘weaponized femininity’ narrative I can think of.

4. Elizabeth DeWitt Oh, Elizabeth. I love her. I love her fucked up history. I love her fucked up present and her implied fucked up future. I wish she had a better ending. If I ever write fic, it will be to correct what has been done to her by canon.

Elizabeth is trying to escape her fate. Her ultimate arc may be about accepting a shitty end, but I don’t think that has to be the case, since I think so much of her story is about denying her future. Like her, I will always hope and strive for something better. She’s femme and hard and powerful and will break the world and make it whole again all with one wishing <3 .

She has the power of a god and the writers/developers/designers didn’t know how to handle that in an interesting way. I love her.

5. Talia (from Arrows of the Queen) SO

When you are reading about a clinically depressed character and you think, “I IDENTIFY WITH HER SO MUCH” that’s probably a sign. So many times, Talia tried to tell me how I was feeling, and it took me a very long time to listen.

I was easily clinically depressed when I read the Arrows of the Queen books. My uncle had just died without me coming out to him. I felt like a disappointment to my mom. My bachelors degree was on fire and it wasn’t totally my fault. There was nothing about myself that I didn’t deeply despise when I read these books, nothing that I didn’t feel the world would be better without. I didn’t want to die, since I have a very particular attachment to my mortality and no matter what, I’m attached to my life for my mom, but I felt so fundamentally worthless that it still hurts to think about. I haven’t been that low since then, and I hope to never be that low again.

I was depressed and I didn’t know it. I don’t think I was truly suicidal even then, even if I was experiencing almost daily suicidal ideation. I don’t think I would have died, but I still think Talia saved my life a little bit--she at least taught me that it’s okay to acknowledge my illness and seek treatment and that it’s okay to want to be happy. I’m so deeply grateful for that I don’t even have words for it, partly because, while I think I would have survived, I wouldn’t be happy.

Talia also got to fuck the most desirable male characters in the Arrows of the Queen trilogy. Even though she was quiet and was shy and was depressed. The message was this: I could have love even if I was mentally ill. I specify ‘male’ characters because Talia was straight, and also because a part of me feels less desirable to men than women, so that fantasy means a lot to me.

Talia is me at my most vulnerable. Talia is me when I want to reach into my own chest and tear myself apart. I love her. She matters. <3

Honorable mentions:

Pearl from Steven Universe (my favorite anxious lesbian, who got a great character arc that I never expected to be validating to both the lesbian-bi women dilemma and to her mental illness. I <3 Pearl). All the women in Overwatch. Sailor Moon and her soldiers. Tamora Pierce’s heroines. Lara Croft.

Tagging @swimthroughthefires @fakeandroid @doomquasar @amandaironic @strawberrylaugh @ghostofthemotif

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