Lurker > rwlh

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I have been fortunate enough over the years to accumulate a great many friends, both IRL and online. Yet I lack the key nutrient in the friendship slurry that pumps through everyones heart. Where, I ask, are my fictional friends? There are many Facebook stalkers and high school crushes and that one kid from down the street who I think dissected squirrels, but where are the made-up characters I can turn to, whose exploits I can lose myself in?

Thus, I turn to you, esteemed community. Give me fictional characters, and I will rank them by how good a friend they would be. Pretty simple.

or is it? No, it is not. But is it? Maybe it is. its not lol

The friends shall be ranked according to highly scientific criteria, which I have dubbed the Alphabet System. Keep in mind that these ratings wont 100% reflect my own views about what makes a good friend Im going for a more objective rating. For example, Im very much a homebody, but many other people value a friend who goes out and does things with them. I will strive for a rating that reflects both my ideals and the ideals of made-up people who may or may not be silently judging me.

Each category will be scored from 0 to 10 in increments of 0.5. Then all categories will be added together and the total scores multiplied by 2 to make a final score out of 100.

The Alphabet System

A is for Activity: Could I do something fun with this character?
A high A rating would reflect a variety of fun activities I could do with them, or one or two interesting, more concentrated activities. A low A rating would reflect boring or unfun activities, or an unwillingness to engage with me in a meaningful way. Someone willing to play games with me might get a high A, but if theyre a poor sport theyd get a low A.

B is for Backup: Would this character have my back in a fight?
A high B rating would reflect the willingness of this character to stand up for me and defend me if things go rough. A low B rating would reflect cowardice and lack of loyalty. This doesnt have to be a physical fight, nor does the character need to be conventionally powerful.

C is for Conversation: Could I hold a decent conversation with this character?
A high C rating would reflect the characters capacity for conversational etiquette: engaging subjects, good back-and-forth, active listening. A low C rating would reflect an inability to talk with them about anything of substance.

D is for Demeanor: Does this character have a winning personality?
A high D rating would reflect a variety of positive personality traits charming, conscientious, funny. A low D rating would reflect the opposite greedy, conniving, closed-minded. Hate Sinks need not apply.

E for Effort: Would this character put in the effort needed to sustain our friendship?
A high E rating would reflect the character making advances toward keeping in touch, or overtly thinking of me, or supporting me in my solo endeavors. A low E rating would reflect little interest in me as a friend or as a person.

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What Am I Willing to Do for This Project?

Short answer: a lot.

Long answer:
- I want to research every nominated character to the best of my ability. This doesnt mean reading Wikis. This means actually reading/watching material.
- I have limits. If you give me a character from a TV show, I will probably watch at least one episode, but Im unlikely to watch the entire show. If you give me a comic/manga character, I will probably read a volume, but not the entire run. If you give me a video game character, I will probably watch part of a Lets Play, but not play the full game. Keep this in mind when nominating. If theres a character from a 300+ episode anime who has a very slow character arc that starts in episode 5 and ends in episode 295, youre going to have to narrow it down for me! Or, ideally, nominate someone else.
- I would love if it I could go this entire project without spending money. I belong to a very good library that can probably get me anything printed or on DVD. I am not above resorting to other (ToU-friendly, of course) methods to find what I cant get through them.
- This is going to be a lot of STUFF. Im not calling it work because I think (hope) it will be fun. I will rely on you, the nominators, to supply me with information. If you nominate for this, please be open to me DMing you (either on GameFAQs or Discord) and having a chat about your character. Hopefully that sounds like fun for you too!
- This shits gonna take a while! Buckle up and wait. Write purposefully bad fanfic of my nominations. I plan to eventually complete the ranking, unless it becomes clinically unfun for me to do so. I hope youll understand if that happens.

Some other guidelines:
- Please nothing too spooky or gory, as is my standard disclaimer for these topics.
- I dont play video games anymore, so any game nominations will rely heavily on LPs. If you have a particular playthrough of a game youd like me to watch with your nomination, let me know. The same goes for anything, really if theres something specific you think I should focus on for your character, please submit that with your nom.
- For non-English media, I strongly prefer subs over dubs whenever possible, so keep that in mind.

You get 1 nomination. Make it count!

Lets go on a Friendship Journey Together. The true meaning of friendship is the friends we friend along the friends. Or something. Have at it!

Having wrapped up his massive 300 song VGM ranking, our hero sets his sights on a new horizon: some sort of brilliant light. In fact, it's so bright, he can't even see what it says!

I have a few ideas for my next ranking, but I can't decide. This is where you come in. There's no guarantee I'll pick the poll winner (or anything on the poll at all), but I like gauging the temperature of the room before diving into the hot tub. Or something.

To expand:

• Non-VGM songs and albums are self-explanatory.
• Contextual VGM is a new idea where I take nominations for songs but nominators also post the context for the song. I would rank each song based on how well it works with the in-game context, not necessarily how much I like the song by itself.
• Fictional character friend ranking is an idea I've had for a while. I would take nominations for characters from any media and I would put them through five categories of "friendship ranking." This one would be very intensive for me and would require a lot of research.

Other rankings I've done include VGM soundtracks (five songs from particular soundtracks), series by visual design, and an unofficial Pokemon design topic. I tend to favor music rankings but as you can see I'm open to other ideas too.

Happy to hear about your ideas!