31 Days of Fictional Characters: Day 1 - Calvin

((Disclaimer: I did *write* this yesterday, I just...braindeaded pretty hard and didn't get around to posting it. There should be another entry soon.))

So!

Wabbit and I were contemplating the difficulties of narrowing it down to three characters with that meme that was floating around Facebook recently. Somehow, this turned into us egging each other on to do a full month of talking about characters that we like/relate to/represent us/etc. So that's gonna be October! If you wanna join us in talking about the characters you love, please do!

My first character is going to be Calvin, as in "...and Hobbes".

I grew up reading newspaper comics. Way way _way_ before I had webcomics, I was opening the back of the newspaper to see what was there. I probably read over half the comics the paper offered, every day for twelve straight years. When I wasn't reading the dailies, I was reading the many collections we had scattered throughout the house. Far Side, Foxtrot, Dilbert, Pearls Before Swine, Get Fuzzy...and damn near all of Calvin and Hobbes, one painstaking volume at a time.

I don't think I ever identified with Calvin growing up. If anything, I thought I was more a Susie character --I like learning, and I try not to disrupt class, and I think Hobbes is cute and boys are dumb. (I also (used to?) identify pretty heavily with Hobbes, in retrospect, because girls are pretty and I can actually get my wish if it's a sandwich.) But with years of retrospect to look back on, enhanced by spending enough time around a variety of children to have a really good understanding of what I must've been like, boy.

Boy.

Calvin is me and I am him and there but for the grace of god go I. He loves to run around outside --loooooves it. Adventure and tree climbing and building weird things out of snow, and having an inspired and shouty relationship with the weather. He's a constant daydreamer, an investigator of Weird Stuff, an enjoyer of creepy-crawlies. He likes horrific movies and being scared out of his wits. He feels Very Very Strongly about his stuffed adventure buddy (and why haven't I shown everyone the picture of me and Lemonsnout that Tailsteak drew me for my birthday, note to self...)

He's smart and clever but he doesn't apply himself. He's easily distracted. He misses deadlines. He writes entire projects in a night, and hopes that maybe if he makes them flashy, they'll be enough to get him a good grade. (I, at least, am aware that bats aren't bugs.) He's impulsive sometimes and easily frustrated and is all about just lying on the couch all day eating sugar frosted chocolate bombs and watching cartoons.

For the past few months, I've been steadfastly ignoring the niggling little voice in my head that says I may be more Gryffindor than I'd really like. Calvin is the sorts of things I think of when I think red and gold. You think a Slytherin would try a homemade transmogrifier? Ha, noooo.

The Calvin part of my life is not the part I most want to encourage. It's very childlike and *very* inadequate, in terms of being basically the antithesis of my vague sense of Getting Things Done. But I can't deny that it's there, nor can I deny that I wouldn't really want it to go away for good.

He's a good kid. But oh, is it hard to be responsible for him.

~Sor
MOOP!

(Relevant additions:

*Oh my good lawd, Geniuses has a website again!! This is my second-favourite romantic fic in the world. It's Calvin in college, and dating Jason Fox. YEP. IT'S PERFECT, OKAY!

*( The aforementioned picture of me and Lemmers: )

)

31 Days of Fictional Characters: Day 2 - Daria

Whuf. I have lost basically all of this weekend. It's...not good. Time to bring myself back to life, through whatever means possible.

(Mostly this means I'ma go upstairs and clean my room, probably.)




Characters I hella relate to numero two: Daria Morgendoffer.

Look, I am only human, and like every sarcastic brunette geek with childhood ties to the nineties or early aughts, I find myself reflected in Daria's deadpan glare. She is, in fact, the first character I ever cosplayed¹! My first Dragon*Con I wandered around dressed as her on parade day, and was fortunate enough to meet some other Daria-ites. We all went and got pizza together --two Darias, two Janes, and a Trent. Absolutely fucking perfect.

A big part of my incentive for cosplaying Daria originally was that there are aren't a lot of characters out there with brown hair and big glasses. Fewer still characters who don't shave their legs. (What's that you say? The cartoon doesn't have enough detail to tell? Are you *really* going to sit here and tell me Daria --who hates conformity like it's her job-- is actually going to waste half an hour in the shower every morning to make herself look sexier to the scintillating young men at her school? _really?!_)

Getting right to the heart of it though, it was so valuable (as a freshman in college --I watched all five seasons of Daria during the summer of 2008) to have a protagonist who wasn't all delicate and bubbly and excitable. As I've mentioned before, my sense of humour is dead-babies-dark, and I speak sarcasm like a first language. Daria was the first of a new kind of hero, and I'll always find her existence of value.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Well, she's the first character I ever cosplayed of my own accord. For various Halloweens, with mom's help, I was the Pink Ranger, an M&M, and Pippi Longstocking, the last of whom will be getting their own post.

Oh right, and I suppose technically "Booty Chest Girl #6" and "Ashley J. Williams" both came before her too. Okay fine, so she's not actually my first cosplay but she's the first one I ever did at a con.