Kraggh's Works ♫♪

5 - Becky Conner
 

 

I feel ashamed. I just called Darlene my favorite character from Roseanne, and I feel sorry when all the guys ignored her and went after her sister instead, but then go ahead rank said sister higher on the hierarchy of beauty!

However, Becky is the reason why on that fateful night when I turned on the television to Roseanne for the first time I stayed on that channel. The first thing that ran through my head? "She's lovely." It was season three and she had a bowl cut, and the hair was really short in back. I absolutely loved it, so I stayed tuned. Unfortunately, you'll find absolutely no pictures of her with the bowl cut on the internet because apparently nobody else thought that it was a cool hair cut. The above picture was the closest I could get, although in reality she has a braid tucked out of sight. The below picture might be it, but it's hard to tell face-on:
 

 

Then I as I watched I learned her name was Becky. That's one of my all-time favorite names. There's a nostalgic real-life story to this, but I won't delve into it. The point is, my brain exploded.

Of course, Darlene caught my attention and kept me in the show for good, but I always liked Becky. The name, for one, fit her, as her personality was as times a bit bird-like. She was into fashion (90's fashion) and impressing Mom and Dad. As the oldest child she had a certain bravado and strong intentions to get her way, which made her easy target for her younger sister Darlene. Fattening the target were some of her stereotypical girly traits, which no tomboy could ever take seriously.
 

Yet there were things that Becky could hold over Darlene. She was the better academic and an honor student. She could get along better with other people. Her feminine wiles might have seemed impractical to a tomboy, but I interpreted it as her way of adapting to society's expectations of her so as best to advance in the world and find success. She was a better academic, a better friend, and while she was at it she was going to be a better girl than Darlene.

She was definitely better at being a girl, to the point where she understood boys.  She got who they were. That's why I'd much rather date her. Becky was a good older sister, though, and did give Darlene honest advice. Darlene still sucked, though, so when I was a teenage boy I still would have preferred dating Becky (so long as she was played by Lecy Goranson and not Sarah Chalke). Even though I'm sure much of her dating was part of a social experiment, she still understood people, which is one of the most attractive traits there is.

 
This movie has it all.  It can play the balance between simple fun in storytelling while being dead serious.  It has great characters, wonderful action, perfect set designs, and a magical world of scenery all rolled into one, all the while centering around a great story.  How often do you get all of these things in one package?  Almost never.  Move aside, Avengers, because it looks like someone came up with something easily twice as epic this year.  There is not a minute of this three hour long movie that fails to stun me.
 
Of course, there are some changes to the book, and I notice where they attempted to bring in stuff left out from The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion into it, but I hope that should be no reason for this to annoy people.  It should serve to bring the the saga together into one coherent story.  So expect to see a little more in this movie that in the book.  Yet, it isn't all just taking stuff in from the other books, but director Peter Jackson spent a considerable amount of time on each and every detail dropped in its main source.  I recognized quite a few lines taken directly from the book, but then the scenes were expanded on.  Individual dwarves were given attention.  As the poster above suggests, every single character was given loads of attention to bring them to life, and the director struck just the right notes to bring them to life.  Meanwhile, many scenes from the book were turned into short stories in their own right, hence the three hours spent in the theatre.
 
What I really have to commend Peter Jackson on is his perfect casting.  In part, that comes from casting unknowns for almost all of the parts so as to create a unique atmosphere that can only be found in these Tolkien Legendarium movies.  I love this.  Yes, there's Ian McKlellan and Christopher Lee, but those are wizards.  Those are transcending powers, so it makes a bit more sense.  Depictions across the board were perfect.
 
Seriously, though, I keep on coming back to how epic this film is.  Not only does it have a great story with great characters and a great style, but every aspect of it visually was perfect.  The scenery is a no-brainer.  Yes, we know just how epic middle-earth is by now.  What they really outdid themselves with this time was the scope of their fantasy designs, in which case I couldn't stop looking at the costumes, the dwarven cities, and so forth, all of which were so imaginative that "magic" is the only word that describes them.  I just might have never seen a movie with so much imagination put into each and every character design and each and every set.  It takes the appeal of fantasy, applies it to the godfather of the new fantasy genre, and turns it up to eleven.  To soak it all in, I really want to watch this again and again and again.
 
The movie opens similarly to how The Fellowship of the Ring opened, with a narration telling an epic story for a backdrop, although this time the monologue is delivered by Bilbo Baggins, who recounts the tail of Smaug and how he came to destroy the Dwarven city.  There are later flashbacks regarding the history of the dwarves after the fact, primarily serving the purpose of building Thorin Oakenshield into a sympathetic character, played convincingly by Richard Armitage.
 
What problem I do have with this, however, is that Smaug was never shown in the opening sequence.  Looking back at The Fellowship of the Ring, Sauron was shown in the beginning.  Therefore, I think Smaug should have been, too.  Otherwise, the movie falls for the storytelling ploy of "He who must not be seen."  That's something I see as unnecessary here, especially given the visual style to these movies.  What is there to say?  Smaug's a dragon.  We know what he looks like, so he might as well have been seen when he was used at the beginning, but otherwise the camera made an awkward attempt to avoid him and only look at his flames and other signs of his existence.  These seem to me to be really silly means.
 
Also, while I accept that The Hobbit is a slightly different story than Lord of the Rings and therefore warrants its own style, I think that visually, there was a certain tone in the Lord of the Rings films that was very different than that used in The Hobbit that I would have preferred to see a bit more of.  For example, in the flashbacks for The Lord of the Rings, the style almost felt like a documentary at times.  When I first saw it as a kid I thought they were recreating something.  Some of the action scenes here felt a little more typically movie-like instead of having that definitive feel that The Lord of the Rings had, particularly during flashbacks.
 
It also didn't help that no matter how good their CGI got, CGI is CGI.  They used a lot more of it, and I was a little disappointed.  There was this awesome sequence where we see the dwarven city, but there's so much there that it's too much to take in with just one camera swoop.  It's probably due to money concerns, but I wish it could feel as real as the Mines of Moria.  The same goes for that goblin city.  I recall a moment in The Fellowship of the Ring when the camera flew around the war machine going on around Isengard, and there was a particular look to that.  I wish that look could be repeated, but instead there's a lot more CG.  Again, that's probably due to the budget, because something tells me that the movie makers would have loved to literally make this entire world.  It's still a little disappointment from me.
 
However, there are other things that do remind me visually of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, primarily the way the camera shows a helicopter's view of the characters traveling across a giant landscape.  Scenery love ensues.  So Peter Jackson didn't completely forget his vision, and he manages to make appropriate changed in style in almost every field.  The dwarf king, however, is good.
 
Wait, then there was the depiction of Radagast the Brown, which was different than how I would have done it, but that's not so important.
 
The thing is that if you like fantasy at all, or just like fun adventure stories, or anything really imaginative or anything with cool visuals, this is the real deal.  If you like a cool story, this is the real deal.  If I didn't have certain stylistic qualities to compare it to in the original set of films, I would have no qualms.  Yet on the whole, this is as perfect of a movie as it gets, and it was worth every minute after midnight to watch.  In other words, I'm rating this an a+, giving it my rare blessing of being a great movie, and not only my approval but my deepest desire that you go watch this film this weekend.  Don't wait until next weekend.  Do it now, because with the possible exception of Les Miserables, this just might be the best film you will see this year.
 

24601

6 - Darlene Conner
 

When I first saw an episode of Roseanne, I was instantly intrigued by Darlene Conner and I knew right away I wanted to watch all the seasons to see more of this character. Darlene isn't someone I'd date, but she's a remarkably real person. I've looked through many blogs to find that there are quite a few young women who found that her character resonated with them. Heck, she resonated with me as well.

She made sense. Roseanne was a great show, for a sitcom. The family relations were great and development of children over time was realistically chronicled. Given the family dynamic she lived it, I can see how her sarcastic, headstrong nature came about. She liked to pull off mean pranks at her sister's expense. No surprise, since Becky was so fun to prank, and her mother basically encouraged it because she had the same sense of humor. It happens all the time in families.

This aggressive behavior also came out in sports. She was a regular tomboy, again to contrast her sister. Tomboys are cool, but then something happened. She grew up. She became a teenager, and her social life began to change. She found that nobody could relate to her or understood who she was. I'm sure she herself didn't understand. Life's certainties and simplicities fell apart, and with it went some of her energy. Her hair grew unkempt, her voice softened, and she wore black and during a time of depression as seen in the main picture. The depression would eventually go away, although he hair would always stay unkempt and her sense of fashion was a bit rugged even for the 90's.
 

(90's fashion!)

 

Then, when I started watching the earlier seasons, there was Darlene's crowning moment, when she wrote and delivered what is one of my favorite poems.
 

 
 
To whom it concerns, Darlene's work will be late
 
It fell on her pancakes, and stuck to her plate
 
To whom it concerns, my mom made me write this
 
But I'm just a kid, so how can I fight this?
 
To whom it concerns, I lost my assignment
 
Maybe I'll get lucky: solitary confinement
 
To whom it concerns, Darlene's great with a ball
 
But guys don't watch tomboys when they're cruising the hall
 
To whom it concerns, I just turned thirteen
 
Too short to be quarterback, too plain to be queen
 
To whom it concerns, I'm not made of steel
 
When I get blindsided my pain is quite real
 
I don't mean to squawk, but it really burns
 
Just thought I'd mention it, to whom it concerns.

 

So on the surface she appeared to only be a tough and independent kid, but I recognized right away that there was something far deeper to her. She'd be hard-pressed to admit it, but her sadness is authentic, and her terrific one-liners stand out from those of other deadpan snarkers in literature when you can appreciate the depths of the person who's saying them.

Her interests went from sports, taking after her father, to her own creative pursuits such as comic books. I was never totally sold that she found herself, but I wasn't surprised during the growing pains of her teenage years her scales tipped to dominance in the right brain. For the rest of the show she still found ways to be socially aggressive, though, and she bullied her eventual boyfriend David to no end.

Darlene is a fascinating person, though fortunately I can observe her through the objective lens of the fourth wall. A person like this in real life might set me off and prevent me from getting to know her. Roseanne simulated that experience the best way it could by creating one of the most psychologically realistic characters ever that includes in her the facets what we normally keep hidden.
 

24601

(since the thumbnail and images in general aren't working, click here instead)

 
In celebration of this once-in-a-century moment,  decided to this old piece of art I pursued when I was a junior taking Independent Art.  Free to do whatever I pleased, I did nothing but large portraits of figures whose presence I found powerful, as well as various art commissions.  This one, Deo et Maria, was completed on Easter morning at my mother's house.
 
Many people assumed that, given that my mother is Catholic, this was meant for her.  It wasn't.  This was entirely for myself as a piece that would eventually be hung up on a wall in my future home, which was the objective of much of my junior year art.  I still really wish to complete another large batch of art to decorate my home someday, but this provides a worthy example of my initial run, of which I have good - if not frustrating - memories.
 
I was inspired by another picture, although I added my own details and changed a few to match a vision I had, especially the shape of the eyes.  It's not entirely original, but it still feels like my own creation because I put all that work into it.
 
In fact, doubly so.  An aunt asked if she could by it, and I turned her offer down.  Then she asked if I could draw it again, and I decided I would.  It was tough work, but I recreated the entire piece, down to every last detail.  Some people said that they were identical, although I shook my head.  The other version has a different understanding of the texture and a different approach to its awareness of light tones, and for me the difference is as clear as light and day (which is a fitting term).  I got payed two hundred dollars for the new piece, and it was a pleasure to add that to my list of firsts.
 
There are also details that viewers of my online portfolio will never see.  The detail is watered down with this scan, and the original picture was two feet tall with a lot of surface area to work with.  The outer rim of the halo was outlined with a reflective gold ink, and the trinity symbols on the shoulders used a reflective silver marker that either disappeared or popped out like supernovas depending on how the light hit them.
 
Amid a plethora of other gigantic art pieces, I entered this into a district art show.  There was a lot of good stuff, and I respected the comptetition.  The man who would later become an art professor of mine had a lot to say about a lot of the art, but to my surprise he gave this the prize for the drawing section.  I now have this nice little trophy that I was able to claim to my name during my senior year graduation party (although I still wish I could achieve other things in life, like my cousin and best friend).  The trophy doesn't mean much to me, though.  That's not something that's going to decorate my someday house.
 
Meanwhile, that is all I have to say for today.  There were plenty of oldies but goodies to choose from as I was considering what to show everyone, but this stood out because it bears a strong sense of iconography, much like my current art piece which I intend to both start and finish today in celebration of the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of the new millennium.  Wish me luck, and I will be seeing you tomorrow.
 

24601

7 - Molly Mahoney
 
 


"Mahoney Baloney!" says Professor Magorium. It must have been a delight for such a childish man to have an assistant from the normal world who inexplicably matched his youthful charm.

If you think about it, Molly Mahoney is neither child nor adult. She's a fantasy person, because she can fit in with Magorium's magical toy shop as if she was born there, and yet she comes from the outside world and has her own real-life problems. At the Toy Shop, she gets along with the kids wonderfully, and she goes along with calling the accountant "Mutant". It was never explained why she could blend in with that environment so well and understood all the rules, especially when she was an adult. That it all came naturally to her was pretty cool.  It also makes me want to shed a small tear because it's something I've lost and wish that I had, but I'm terrible at this.

Yet, at the same time she had the qualities of a real person. She loved the magic toy shop, but she wanted to move on, like many people do. She wanted to become a pianist and write her own music. It was pretty great music, too. And because she was real, it was possible for there to be a slight romance between her and the unbeliever Mutant.

In some ways, she's definitely a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but it's not because of her quirks or her likes. She mainly fits the description because she shows an otherwise dull and boring man how to enjoy life, and I suppose it's easy to label her a pixie with that adorable haircut. Perhaps because of her personality she could fit the description, but I think that those are good qualities that go beyond quirks. She has spirit, and lots of it, and let's not forget her life-filled smile.
 
 
 

 
She dressed in such a way that's very childish and magical, showing that she embraces the world around her. There's room for pessimism and doubt, but it never really stood a chance. How could it when Magorium was such a great boss and she was his worthy successor? It was going to be a feel-good story from the start.

Perhaps my favorite thing about Mahoney is that she knows how to play. It gets me cheerfully nostalgic, because there was a time when I was eight when play time meant happiness. There was one friend in the whole wide world who would play with me, and coincidentally she looked like Mahoney. Those were the best days of my life.
 
 
 

24601

 

8 - Selina Kyle
 

 

 What I like about Selina is that she's grounded. You'd think that since she wears a catsuit when ready for action that she'd be an action girl, and while she can often get her way out of tricky situations, she's not ridiculously good at fighting. Her skill set is dedicated more to the subtle art of cat burglary, which she pursues due to her own complicated Robin Hood reasons. Yet, in spite of her talent, she's not completely off the records. She needs a clean slate and has to risk quite a bit to get it, and unsuccessfully. It turns out that she can be caught by the police, and on top of that she knows when to be afraid, because Bane and his cronies are completely out of her league.

Contrast this to the typical action girl. Lately there was also someone named Natasha Romanov, also known as the Black Widow. She also wore a catsuit, although for some reason she unzipped it to display gratuitous cleavage. What gets at me with this character is that, as the action girl, she always has the upper hand, because no matter what she's skilled enough to fight herself out of even the most ridiculous situations, because at the end of the day she's the action girl and everyone else is just a thug. It's a very simple and blunt narrative, and I don't necessarily think that it's empowering to women. She's essentially a man's creation in a woman's suite, and there's no doubt that she was merely the product of the male imagination because I know male fantasies when I see them.

So Selina isn't really the action girl. I see her more as a skilled, elegant woman, with neither her talents nor her femininity turned into caricatures. The true virtues of being a woman, whatever they are, I am sure are far more complex than what most male authors can imagine. And it's true, because underneath I have the sense that she's far more intricate than Black Widow, who's blunt in comparison. This seems to me to be closer to a strong woman as women would imagine themselves.

At first I was against having her played by Anne Hathaway, bythaway (See what I did there?), but the more I thought about it the more I thought this was a dead-on choice, especially when paired with the older sense of fashion the character subtley embraces, which look very good on Anne. She has that very plain and traditional beauty that matched the type of character Selina was: human in her limits but still cunning and graceful.

As a side note, I had actually expected Nolan would cast Ellen Page as Selina, since I could have seen her playing the role and he had already brought up just about everybody else from Inception.
 

 

You know that slight romance between her and Batman? I totally ship it. She doesn't need romance, and it seems out of her character for her to care for Bruce, but that's what makes for a relationship, because a good relationship isn't necessarily something you need or something you're looking for. I just thought that her brand of femininity truly complemented Bruce Wayne's brand of masculinity. They don't share everything in common and are fairly different personalities, but they balance each other out, which while not completing each other (because they're already complete), it certainly completes the single unit that is their partnership.

So I'm glad that this character made it big in cinematic history. I'm sure she'll be helpful as an example when explaining certain philosophies about love and human nature.
 

24601

I will do a few more "vs" entries before the end of the month, but in December I will start something new. The project is to be called Normal Everyday Writing Themes (NEWT). This is being advertised now on Tanksgiving (thanks to Lhikevikk, I realize my typo here, but because he's right about how epic it is I won't correct it) because today is a day for being thankful for all the things that we take for granted. Hence, the theme and style of this idea: every day for the next few months, starting in December, I will repost this entry with a new theme.

This is for writers. These themes will apply to writing. Although not an official event, I do this in hopes of encouraging writers on BZPower subject material to write about, and often times the greatest writing material is right underneath our noses, hidden in plane site among the activities of everyday life. So will it be that most of these themes will focus around everyday things, from family to school to work.

I encourage writers to look at the headline for this entry every day and think of writing something about it. It doesn't matter if it's a short story, a chapter to an epic, a poem, or an essay (for the bloggers out there). I would be proud to see someone post artork on these themes. The point is, this is a daily exercise, and it is distinct from Ambage activities such as the Fortnightly Flash Fiction Contest and the Skype Write-Offs because it's daily, has no time limit (unless you want to get done with one theme before the next one comes around in 24 hours), and isn't a competition. This is meant to encourage regular writing.

Allow me to speak in the second person. I will word these headlines in such ways that I hope they speak to you. Think about it. What do some of these everyday things sound like to you? These won't be vague, poetic themes like "Pathfinding", but a little more specific in their application toward life. So imagine seeing the headline "Being the only girl". Yes, you can make a great adventure story out of that, I'm sure, but my advise to all writers is to stop and reflect and forget for just a moment about being creative and original. What's the truth behind the theme? How does it speak to you? These are just some things for you to consider as you grow and develop as a writer to discover the meaning of art.

Also, if you feel like it, you can post a link to your work here to help establish a sense of community and let other writers know of your participation, as well as give people the opportunity to see what interpretations of the themes have already been covered.

That's it. That's all I have to say for now. I hope you all are interested!
 
----------
 
Eudaimonia
 
 
A Greek word for happiness, this is actually fairly specific and means "the good life".  This is to say that eudaimonia doesn't apply to happiness at any specific moment, but happiness over a lifetime and an ultimate sense of peace with someone has done with what they had allotted to them.  it's a big concept, and when I took a college class called "The Roots of Western Culture and Worldview" (aka Western Civ), I chose this as the subject of my semester paper, which I wrote largely overnight.  Specifically, I had to explain Aristotle's views on happiness as described in the Nicomachean Ethics (while at the same time using at least five sources).  It was something I did all at the last minute, and surprisingly I got a near perfect grade, save for the deductions made for turning it in late.  I wish I still had that paper, because it was a really good essay, and there's a lot to say about it, especially when I had a very powerful thesis.
 
This is a broad subject for something that's supposed to be normal and everyday, but I figured that I wanted to start off with a big question that ought to challenge the reader, and that is: "What is the good life?"  That's what I naturally begin to ponder when I look at the theme.  Who knows, though.  Someone might look at the theme and see it in a much simpler light.  On the whole, though, if anyone's out there who's interested in participating in NEWT, I guess that the nature of this theme still entails stories with a bigger narrative at hand, and hopefully these thoughts will bring about some of our finer literature to date.
 
Well, that's enough of me being a philosophy nerd.  I will see you all tomorrow.
 
----------
 
Moving
 
Most, if not all who read this should have some familiarity with the proces of moving away from and old home and into a new one, saying goodbye to friends in the process.  Either that, or a friend has moved away.  Saying goodbye to home and making that transition, taking away the constants in your life, can be tough.  I would imagine that we all have our stories to share, or through our experience be able to create another story that has that sincere sense of being true to life.
 
----------
 
Story Behind a Photograph
 
I got part of the inspiration for this project and wrote down a list of themes long enough to last months while my grandmother was going through an old photo album and telling some cousins of mine the stories of their father and their uncles.  As she went through that sacred oral tradition of sharing her family stories with the next generation, I wrote down those little moments of life that I take for granted.  Meanwhile, it also makes for a good theme that's certainly open for interpretation from the author.
 
 
----------
 
What is a nerd?
 
Ah, the question as old as time, or at least as old as the 50's.  I personally think that the word is used too freely these days to describe anyone with geeky interests, but I personally feel that a lot of intelligence has to go into nerdiness as well, so I get annoyed when someone can be described as a nerd just for being a Star Wars or Harry Potter fan, when really they should just be called franchise fans because these are unrelated to academic intelligence and problem-solving.
 
There's also my grife about people applying labels to themselves and letting the nerd label define them and acting in certain ways because "that's how nerds should act".  How lame.  I hate that reasoning anywhere.  I hate it when I use it on myself, because sometimes I let my self-labelling define me and act certain ways "because I'm nerdy."  Then in hindsight, I think it's kind of less true to myself.  And really, sometimes I wonder what exactly a nerd is, once you remove all the stereotypes and unnecessary details and get straight to the core of what one is.
 
----------
 
A Christmas Carol
 
At this point my favorite Christmas carol is Silent Night, in-between the times when I'm listening to Stille Nacht instead, because everything sounds better in German.  Everything.  Bias aside, I also like O Come All Ye Faithful (probably because it also has a German counterpart).  This is to say nothing about the Hallelujah Chorus, which is amazing and one of the greatest works of music ever produced, although I wouldn't consider it a Christmas carol.  We also know Carol of the Bells is one of the most beloved, respected, and dramatic pieces of music ever written as well, which just so happens to be related to Christmas, and it can mean many things to many people, although its lyrics are only atmospheric and don't tell a particularly resonating story, which is why at the end of the day I listen to the classic carols about the meaning of Christmas, especially if they have a German or Latin equivalent, to keep my heart where it should be.
 
How I miss the days that I have gone out and Christmas Caroled.  It has been a long time.  Maybe in a couple of years I will return to the age-old practice with a few friends, or I could in fact do it this year.  It's been so long ago since I've done this that all my memories have receded into that surreal world of the past.  Those are kid memories now, but even as a kid I knew I was doing something special and rare, and for once I have memories that don't make me feel nostalgic because there were times in my life where I cherished what I had before I lost it.
 
There also happens to be a strong association with a certain story that has this title when the phrase "A Christmas Carol" is mentioned.  My favorite adaption of this tale is An American Christmas Carol, starring Henry Winkler as Benedict Slade, American industrialist-turned Scrooge of the Great Depression, which delivers his tale of rise, fall, and redemption so well that it was one of the last films that brought tears to my eyes before seeing Schindler's List, and I highly recommend it to anyone who can fish it up.
 
Yes, at the end of the day, it's a vague concept, this whole business of Christmas carols.  It doesn't mean anything in particular, but it seems to intertwined with who we are that they will always have a special place in our heart and be a strong, resonating, universal theme for any story.
 
----------
 
Being the Oldest Child
 
Either you were the oldest child or you were not.  Either way, I can certainly relate, being one myself.  Every family has one, and thus this is as everyday as you can get.
 
----------
 
Being the Only Girl
 
Statistically speaking, the majority of BZP authors are males, and we male authors tend to write stories about men.  We also know that girls tend to get relegated back to the role of romantic interest, in which case their femininity defines them.  Let's switch things around for a moment and see things from the perspective of a human being who also happens to be the only female within a group.  I remember pondering this and writing a short fictional letter, To the Guys.  It was nice to write something short for once, but even more importantly it was good to ponder seeing someone for her deepest and truest self, and trying to see how we're all the same.  Then, me just being me, I also sometimes try to walk a mile in the shoes of this other person and also try to understand that true femininity is, deep down inside once you remove all of the cultural superficialities.
 
Coming from the same strand as the last theme, this is another common thing you see everyday that makes someone unique.  Whether she's the only sister among eleven brothers or the only girl in a group of guy friends, there's always the girl who lives amid the opposite sex, doesn't think of herself as a gal, and identifies more with the thinking of guys while matter-of-factly acknowledging that on technical levels she isn't, and her femininity is something far deeper and more internal.
 
Or maybe not.  It depends on the person.
 
It's interesting for me to write about female characters because they're not common enough and they don't get enough justice, and all to often their femininity is treated as a gimmick to the personality.  It's irrational to deny that it doesn't make them unique, of course, but I tend to treat that form of uniqueness in a similar way in how I treat the subject of being an oldest child.  There's something special about you, something that sets you apart emotionally from the rest for no real reason, if only due to outside expectations and the way you see yourself with respect to others.  Female characters are fun to write about, and when you enter outside of life fiction and enter the realm of fantasy literature, there are people who are special because they're the seventh son of a seventh son, because they have a birthmark, because they have a unique personality quirk, or any such measure that marks them as the Chosen One within the story.  Yet, I like to be much simpler.  I like to chose a girl and just give her a soul.  She is who she is, and when written in sincerity, that's enough to make a main character special.
 
----------
 
The Picture in My Locket
 
It's just a little more specific than "the story behind a picture".  But the theme doesn't necessarily have to be about the story behind the pciture.  Maybe the background is of no importance.  Maybe it just contains a picture of roses, and the main character just happens to like roses.  Maybe it has magic properties and puts a curse or blessing on the wearer of the locket.  Maybe the locket's owner is Dorian Grey.  You never know.  It's completely up to your imagination.
 
----------
 
Faking a Smile
 
I was looking at some pictures and I could totally tell times when someone was faking a smile.  Then I realized that people fake smiles in a completely different way for each other, even when cameras aren't included, and in many ways we fake happiness much of the time.  At least, as far as the cliche suggestion goes.  Maybe that doesn't apply to you.  I don't claim to have that deep of a grasp of human nature.
 
24601
 

9 - Luna Lovegood
 

She was what got me really excited to see The Half-Blood Prince. Hermoine usually gets all the credit for being the cool female lead, but I prefer Luna instead. She's smart, since she's in Ravenclaw, but in that way that requires abstract thinking. It sort of makes her an oddball, but then consider just how odd everything is in the Potterverse. I'd say she adjusted quite well.

What really stands out about her is that she's pure. What you see with her is what you get. She's not weird because she's a rebel without a cause. She just is. She's being true to herself, and she's true to others. She trusts her friends and follows them when they have faith in their convictions. She could belong in Gryffindor because she's actually quite brave. It's just not as obvious.

But perhaps my favorite thing about Luna is that she's understanding and never really judges other people. It's something I strongly value in myself and others, and the world would be a better place if more people were like her.
 

24601

Foreword
 
So I thought I'd start this list before Les Miserables came out with Anne Hathaway doing what I know will be a breathtaking job of playing Fantine and completely forcing me to rethink how I set up this list.  Meanwhile, I will also be composing a list after this dedicated to characters who I think are manly.
 
Why am I doing this? When I first had the idea of creating this list, I brushed it aside because I thought it was inherently superficial. Nobody wants to hear about what female characters I think are more beautiful than others. If there's one sure way to degrade the opposite sex, it's by rating them on their appearances. I didn't want to write anything superficial. My disposition changed when I realized that I could make a few significant notes about humanity and discuss beauty on more than one level. Then I got the idea to make this a countdown, so as to better divide the list and dedicate more time to each entrant, and which leads me to the present.

These characters, through their personalities and the way their appearances have reflected them, have fundamentally affected my image of what beauty is over time. Sometimes I have had huge crushes on the characters, while at other times I have not crushed on the character but she has molded the image in my mind of what makes for a woman. Sometimes I end up really appreciating people who remind me of the character. The ten people of this compilation have together come to help define my understanding of what makes femininity wholesome.

This list will naturally include pictures, of course, since there's no better way to describe someone's external beauty, but I would also like to explain through words why their personalities make their faces stand out.

A distinction must be made so that it is clear that this list specifically refers to the depictions of fictional characters and not the actresses who play them. Therefore beforehand I will have to give honorable mention to multiple characters played by Jennifer Connelly, such as Marion Silver (who has such a beautiful name) and Sarah (from Labyrinth), and characters played by Zooey Deschanel and Audrey Hepburn, who have all played beautiful and appealing characters, but too much of their appeal was because I was already predisposed to admire their portrayers. In the upcoming examples I think that the actresses who played my favorite characters are themselves beautiful, but primarily because of their association with the given character.

Now, there are certain characters who did not make the list that I'd like to get out of the way right now via more honorable mentions. Violet Parr was my official Disney crush and imaginary girlfriend back in fifth grade. Merida from Brave currently holds that title, but animated characters are off limits in this list. Amy Pond, Rose Dawson, Io, Hermione Granger, and Mary Poppins are all beautiful in different ways, along with many others who come to mind that I won't mention just because I know people like some sense of mystery on these lists and hopes that their choices will make it (only to completely hate on the list maker when the #1 choice is either an underdog or overrated).

But anyway, those aren't my Top 10. This foreword has gone on long enough. Time for me to ramble on about individuals, starting with...



10 - Juno MacGuff
 

 

When I first saw posters for this indie film, I thought it was going to be nothing but an obscure raunchy comedy, but somehow my judgment must have changed, because I ended up wanting to watch it somewhere along the line. Probably an advertisement.

What matters was that I watched it, and it was one of the best indies I've seen. Very touching and all that.

The first thing that's cool about Juno is her name. I'm attracted to a pretty name just as much as I am to a pretty face, and this one matches her personality. It's pretty, but quirky, which is who Juno is. And she doesn't need a nerd to be quirky. She's very sure of herself, and a deadpan snarker. Casting Ellen Page for her was perfect, since Ellen has this distinct sound to her voice that's perfect for a casually sarcastic teenager.

She can be a bit aggressive in a social way. After all, she went and got pregnant, which was sort of the main plot point, but even after that unexpected little bump she handled things quite well. It's not like she shrugged it off, but it didn't completely change her. The worst part, really, was realizing the social stigma that came with teenage pregnancy, but other than that she remained her eccentric self. She could have been really insecure, but she got along with whoever was willing to just chill.

Yeah, I guess that since she's not a nerd you could alternatively classify her as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but at least she isn't fixing up the life of a brooding young man - and she's the main character. So she's known well for he likes and quirks, but that was a lifestyle she chose. Among other choices. She could be a real person and not just an imaginary archetype. If she was a perfect MPDG, she's be nothing but quirks, and she inverts it by truly having some deeper concerns, such as making sure something good happens to her baby. And really, many a teenager can be awkward and weird, and she enjoys it to its fullest extent. Go life.

And seriously, she has a hamburger-phone.
 

24601

I have officially submitted my word count to the NaNoWriMo site, and it stands at 61,065 words.  While this is short of my goal of approximately 80,000 words before the end of November, completion of this task and the first inklings of momentum in a long-distance writing ambition are reward enough.  The novel at hand, which I consider concept art for a larger, more official canon, is entitled The Adventures of Mary.  As this is an ongoing series, the working title for this particular installment is Pilot.  I will continue to write into December, but for now I will fall back to reload and develop the concepts for the second batch of chapters.  At present I am through with 12 chapters, and I covered an awful lot of stuff in each one, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.
 
The great news is that I will be posting these chapters on a weekly basis, starting with the first Saturday of 2013.  While it will be a while before the titular character, Mary, gets into the headlight, I encourage readers to stick around, because I wish to accomplish a big story that few web serials ever achieve.  I have enough material and enough ideas for story that this will last for a while, and it will only get better as introduce a cast of characters that becomes more and more distinct over time.
 
Also, look forward to the prologue, coming out on Christmas day!  So if you're interested, keep an eye out for my blog, or the CoT Library should the current petition for one win official favor, and get yourself mentally prepared for a really, really long epic that will only improve.  I will do everything within my creative power to see to it that this keeps you entertained, because this is all about you.
 

24601