#mickey is soft as fuck compared to most of my massmurdering faves

[gallavictorious]

Top 5 Male Characters

I was tagged by @whaticameherefor - thanks, dear, this was fun!

Standard disclaimer: These are some of my favourites – I'd be hard-pressed to choose the actual top 5. Whom I love best varies a bit (though no 1 below will probably always be no 1).

Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars)

This one strode straight into my heart on Boxing Day 1994, and it's fair to say that my life might well have looked rather different if he hadn't. Star Wars was my first big fandom, and it's still the one I keep in my heart of hearts, even if I'm not into Disney's revisionist stuff at all. (Which is a shame, because Rey, Poe and Finn are darling and I would have loved to see good movies wih them.) Darth Vader is kind of like a fusion between two of my very early favorites: Shredder (from Turtles) and Zorro, so yeah. I fell for Vaderkin the second he said “I am your father” because in that moment I knew that a, there was an exciting history there, and b, he'd turn back to the light side. I was a dangeorusly genre savvy 10-year old, I just want that said – and I've been a sucker for a redemption arc since... forever. I have a vivid memories of dreaming of Duchess Ravenwaves of Lady Lovelylocks becoming fast friends when I was a 7 or 8.

Excellent things about my dumbass Chosen One include his dedication to being a Dramatic Bitch, him being very intelligent about some things while being so fucking stupid about others, his general prowess (Kee has a competence kink, y'all... ), and the fact that he loves enough to both break the world and heal it. Truth be told, though, I've loved him for so long that I can't really say what it is I love about him, the same way you can't really say that about siblings or close friends: I just know that I do.

Jim Moriarty (Sherlock)

Jim's an amoral genius with a thing for Sherlock Holmes, and not only does he dress well but he is fun, which is only all too rare in villains. (Unless you go for the actually insane and sadistic ones, which I don't so much.) If you gonna be evil, you might as well delight in it! When pulling off a complicated  heist, Jim takes the time to design a completely bogus app with super cute icons, in spite of him being the only one who will ever see them. This is the kind of dedication I look for! Underneath the slick facade and wisecracks, there's the very occasional glimmer of utter ennui and loneliness, which makes his gleeful embrace of CRIME all the more compelling to watch.

Incidentally, Sherlock was the fandom that had me move from LiveJournal to Tumblr back in 2012. I'm extremely intrigued by Sherlock and Jim's relationship – foe yay dreams were made of this – and I have to say that my interest in the series dwindles since Jim's death (THERE WAS NO BODY! HE COULD HAVE FAKED IT! DON'T AT ME!), thought that might well be due to season 3 and (particularly) 4 not quite living up to the absolute glory that was the two first seasons.

Gabriel Gray/Sylar (Heroes)

Driven by a need to be 'special' (blame it on his mom), humble watchmaker Gabriel Gray adopts the name Sylar and starts murdering people to steal their various super powers, as you do. Sylar ticks several of my boxes: extreme competence, one-liners, into being super dramatic, proper enjoyment of being bad, strong eyebrow game, redemption arcs. Yes, arcs - there are several, as Sylar kind of goes back on forth on the whole being evil thing. Later seasons introduce a 'hunger' that's supposed to explain his descent into darkness, which I'm not a huge fan of (I'm more into people making horrible choices of their own free will; drugs, psychotic breaks and being possessed by dark powers bore me) but I suppose it'd be a little hard to sell his ultimate  redemption otherwise, because he kills so many people and often seem to have quite a bit of fun doing it. To be fair, he kind of goes to prison for eight years (even if it's all in his head... ) but yeah.

Since Sylar interacts with and antagonizes pretty much all of the heroic main cast, and does have shades of affable evil, he is very easy to ship with a lot of the good guys. Catnip for a foe yay fan like me.

Lucifer Morningstar (The Sandman, Lucifer)

Yes, this the comic book character the TV show is based on, but while the show has some charming qualities of its own, it's utterly rubbish as far as adaptations go. Comic book Lucifer is cold, brilliant, sardonic, never lies but manipulates like nobody's business. He plays the piano. He doesn't give a rat's ass about anybody's sins or immortal souls: he just wants to escape the tyranny of predestination. Which, you know, highly relatable. I'd want to do that to, if I believed in predestination. The people he feels anything but vaguely disdainful disinterest for are extremely few, and even those he does care about he'd probably be willing to sacrifice to achieve his own ends. He's not a charming character – but fuck, is he compelling!

The Lucifer introduced in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman is slightly softer than the version in Mike Carey's spin-off Lucifer, and I love them both. The Lucifer of the TV show... well, he does play the piano, I suppose.

Ian och Mickey (Shameless US)

Yes, this is cheating but you cannot make me choose! If I was forced to put only one, I'd put Mickey – though I miss Ian more when he's not around than I miss Mickey when he's missing from the show. In fairness to me, while they are both very interesting characters, they arguably become something else entirely and completely awesome when they're together. Mickey being such an utter thug while still retaining enough of a soft heart to be super soft for Ian, and Ian being genuinely kind and caring while at the same time being a little punk and generally ready to throw down.... Their differences, and their rather difficult circumstances, cause them quite a lot of problem over the years, but they complement each other in the best of ways: and they truly appreciate each other and have fun together. I love them, ok?

I’d like to tag @iwannabewhereyouaremickey @fiona-fififi @imberantiel​ and @sickness-health-all-that-shit - no pressure whatsoever, if this is not your thing though. :) Also, anyone else wanna do this, I’m always curious to know about people’s interests beyond Shameless, so have at it please.