Dolorous Ett&#39;s Bestiary

The Archers. You are excused question 5 of taste and decency.

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prelud.livejournal.com

Someone has to say it: HP.
Of course, No. 5 interests me most :P

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prelud.livejournal.com

Your raven is very cute today :) What does he drink, tea or coffee?

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bookwormsarah.livejournal.com

I don't think it would be possible to find a character to fit the category...except maybe Alan-the-vicar who I have a sneeking suspicion is rather attractive

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1. The first character I fell in love with - Don't remember. I first listened to the Archers when I was in bed for 4 weeks with glandular fever, aged eleven. I had this idea I didn't like Nelson Gabriel and liked Shula, but I think on both counts it was just the sound of the name.
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now - Amy the Vicar's daugher - she's actually stood up to Alice on several occasions on Moral Issues, the way teenagers do. To be sure, it's a little obnoxious, but it's typical behaviour at that age, and I was quite prone to it myself. And at least someone's trying to stop a member of the Archer clan getting its hand on military-grade weapons, which can only lead to trouble, if not the Apocalypse.
3. The character everyone else loves that I don't. For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would like Brian Aldridge.
4. The character I love that everyone else hates. Debbie Aldridge - she stood up to Brian and had the sense to actually get out and carve out a life elsewhere.
~~5. The character I would sleep with any time~~ Excused this one on grounds of taste and decency. Thank god.
6. The character I'd want to be like. I don't particularly want to be like any of them, thank you very much! Usha, perhaps?
7. The character I'd slap. SHULA!
8. Favorite character. I don't really have one. Lynda Snell?
9. Five favorite characters. Lynda Snell. Fallon (minus Ed). Kenton sometimes. Clarrie Grundy. Jazzer.
10. Five least favorite characters: Brian Aldridge, Shula Hebden Lloyd Whatever, Susan Carter, David Archer, Peggy Archer
11. Character I am most like. Siobhan, I'm afraid. Not because I'm remotely attracted to seedy, adulterous old men, nor am I a gorgeous redhead, but we share same profession, and a completely inability to fit in in the Enclave.
12. DEEP DARK SECRET REGARDING THIS FANDOM I haven't actually listened to an episode for months - there was this rash of really annoying storylines and I just couldn't take it any more. I participate in this fandom entirely through online discussions and reading episode synopses.
13. A pairing (or more!) I love. Ed/Debbie (crucial to breaking the curse in the Terror that Walks in Darkness arc). Will Grundy/Nic - he deserves a bit of happiness in his life, but not with anyone much nicer or interesting than he is. They appear to be made for each other.
14. A pairing (or more!) I despise. Ed/Fallon - never have I seen such a cack-handed storyline in my life. It's as fake as... there is nothing faker. It's nothing to do with shipping Ed/Debbie, either - it just didn't strike me as a plausible development of romance. I'm not too hot on Matt/Lilian either - she strikes me as quite nice, whereas he is unpleasant verging on sinister.
15. Five favorite things about the fandom. Five? Hmmm... fans in surprising places, occasional rather good fanfiction, source of information that's helped me out in one or two classes, brilliant material for subverting into dark supernatural fanfiction, on at an hour when I'm usually at home (when I can bear to tune in)
16. Five least favorite things about the fandom. The BBC noticeboard expresses some quite unpleasant opinions from time to time, especially where female characters are concerned.

Edited Date: 2008-03-06 05:23 pm (UTC)

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Seconded, heaven help me.

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Enterprise.

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I confess I can't see it - but then he did manage to attract the only Archers female I can imagine as being truly beautiful...

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Fun, aren't they? I love

cute_moodthemes!

I hadn't really thought about it. Coffee is more of a raven colour, but I'm an inveterate tea drinker...

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themolesmother.livejournal.com

Lord of the Rings.

MM

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coyotegoth.livejournal.com

Star Trek original series?

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ms-wanderlust.livejournal.com

Has to be Wimsey. Sigh.

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Is it even worse that I used to think that about Robin?

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I can't understand why anyone would like Brian Aldridge.

As Shula put it, "He wears shoes with gold tassels!"

I love Lynda, too. An appallingly wasted character.

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No, I think this illustrates why young single clergymen used to go about quiet rural villages in fear of their lives, though: the only available men for miles around who had (a) two braincells to rub together, (b) were educated and (c) weren't from Round There. The same probably applies to young doctors, though I have a vague idea that in the nineteenth century they tended to be married by the time they got to the stage of a country practice.

None of this ought to apply in the real world any more, but then the Archers is curiously behind the times in many ways, and the Vicar is still generally the only character with a wider perspective than the village and some sort of brain, which automatically gives him a head start over the other Ambridge men in the attractiveness stakes.

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I think the appeal of Brian Aldridge is that, unlike the rest of the Archer clan, he's not a simpering goody-goody. But it doesn't make up for the fact that he has the morals of a polecat and awful taste in shoes.

(Though I suspect his voice might have something to do with it)

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I'm terribly relieved at

tree_and_leaf's answer, as for some reason I can't get the idea out of my mind that Robin is a horse!

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As Shula put it, "He wears shoes with gold tassels!"

I can't quite decide whether this is using Shula to justify his awfulness, or to use the fact that she disapproves to excuse it...

Edited Date: 2008-03-07 02:10 pm (UTC)

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1. The first character I fell in love with
Hermione
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now
Ron - a bit daft, but a good 'un at bottom.

3. The character everyone else loves that I don't
Draco Malfoy. I don't care if he's blond or not - he's still horrid.

4. The character I love that everyone else hates
Grawp! Poor, misunderstood, heroic, poetic Grawp!

5. The character I would sleep with any time
Fanon!Snape, of course! All women want him; all men want to be him. He is dark, handsome, mysterious, tortured, romantic, erudite, scholarly, speaking several languages fluently, brilliant in bed, impeccably dressed and a connoisseur of fine wines.
He has also been COMPLETELY jossed by canon.

6. The character I'd want to be like
Minerva McGonagall

7. The character I'd slap
Dolores Umbridge for being vile, or Sybill Trelawney for being a superstitious ninny. The youthful Sirius Black for being over-showy and arrogant.

8. Favorite character
Harry - well, he is the hero of the books, after all!

9. Five favorite characters
Hermione, for being bright and yet far from infallible. Hagrid for being a sweetheart. Ron for being a fantastic friend. Remus Lupin for bearing up so well under awful circumstances. Luna for being dotty and wise.

10. Five least favorite characters
Bellatrix Lestrange. Lucius Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Fred and George (I know they're on the side of good and right, and can be funny, but I just don't like them). Voldemort.

11. Character I am most like
I honestly have no idea. Luna? Hermione? Aberforth?

12. DEEP DARK SECRET REGARDING THIS FANDOM
When I was young and very, very green, I went through a brief phase of shipping Snape/Hermione. This was mostly due to reading some really good fics on the subject (and others which are honestly not that good when you've read around the competition). I now find this quite embarrassing, as the version of Snape in those fics was never really that representative of the character, and is now jossed beyond recall.

13. A pairing (or more!) I love
I don't know. Shipping just doesn't interest me much. Um... Mme Maxime/Hagrid? *gives up*

14. A pairing (or more!) I despise
Wolfstar! (or Sirius/Remus if you prefer). I have Wolfstar shippers on my flist who turn out great stories, but I value friendship a lot, and it irritates the hell out of me when demonstrations of intense platonic friendship get turned into an automatic prelude to sex. How dreary life would be if it were really like that!

15. Five favorite things about the fandom
The fantastic people I've met through it
The fact that it got me writing again.
Discussions
Discovering livejournal through it
Being able to discuss HP when a lot of my family and colleagues are rather snippy about it.

16. Five least favorite things about the fandom
Shipping wars (why? WHY?)
Relative lack of good genfic
The HP Lexicon scandal
It's too big - people sort of congregate in cliques of the like-minded, so you never get enough exposure to what other people are thinking.
The lot of my favourite writers seem to have drifted away a bit after Book 7.

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I think teachers coming to rural schools in China also experience something very similar, even now.

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1. The first character I fell in love with
T'pol - for being so obviously struggling with the culture.

2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now
Trip Tucker. I started out thinking he was a complete idiot, and while he certainly should never have been let out without a minder for most of the first two series, he does grow up a bit, and at all times displays a childlike amazement at the sights he sees that I find rather charming.

3. The character everyone else loves that I don't
Porthos. An exploratory spaceship is no place for a dog.

4. The character I love that everyone else hates
I don't know who hates whom. I suspect Ambasador Soval is meant to be unsympathetic, but I often find myself cheering him on, especially when he's undermining Archer's right to be a fool.

5. The character I would sleep with any time
Nobody really springs to mind, though Travis Mayweather is very pretty. I would have said Malcolm Reed until the Gratuitous Bare-Chested Decontamination Chamber shot - he works out so much that his chest looks completely fake - like it's made out of too much rubber.

6. The character I'd want to be like
Phlox, for the humour and callous, unflappable calm, or T'pol for the logic. Most of all, though, I want Hoshi's job.

7. The character I'd slap
Archer, for being a blundering fool.

8. Favorite character
A difficult one - let's go for T'pol.

9. Five favorite characters
Hoshi, Phlox, T'pol, Reed, Shran

10. Five least favorite characters
Archer, Porthos, Shran's periwinkle blue girlfriend

11. Character I am most like
Hoshi, probably. I want to be T'pol when I grow up, though.

12. DEEP DARK SECRET REGARDING THIS FANDOM
I like Enterprise more than any of the other Trek series. This, I understand, makes me a Bad Trekkie.

13. A pairing (or more!) I love
None, though I have learned, reluctantly, to tolerate Trip/T'pol as it's canon.

14. A pairing (or more!) I despise
T'pol/Archer for its mind-boggling lack of logic.

15. Five favorite things about the fandom
They're very new explorers, and have to make it up as they go along.
They show very neatly why angsting about breaking the Prime Directive is not a waste of time.
They make the Vulcans interesting and complex.
They have translation software that doesn't work properly - I work with this stuff occasionally, and take it from me, something always goes wrong.
They have an armoury officer who actually raises valid safety concerns.

16. Five least favorite things about the fandom
The captain should have been court-martialled not once but half a dozen times.
The Vulcanspolitation makes me profoundly uneasy.
Most of the crew should never have been allowed out without a minder. The advice of the only people who can be trusted out alone (T'pol and Reed) is routinely ignored.
This is a small fandom - almost invisible, and it's not that easy to make contact with someone who's a real fan.

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Ambridge vicars have the further edge over doctors/vets in that they've actually studied an arts degree, and thus are permitted to read the newspaper on occasion. Also, whilst we never hear about the professional development of the medics, the vicar is expected to occasionally consider his faith and to talk to the bishop, and thus allowed trips outside the enclave. No wonder they are eligible types!

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