Full Length

Gather round, and listen to the story of The Friday Night I Visited Home and The Shennanigans that Pursued.

It was a regular Friday night, glorious by the virtue of the fact that it was Friday and all the shit of that week had been properly waded through and we had successfully popped out the other end, with the beginning of a joyous weekend to look forwards to. 

My family and I were sitting in the living room, engaging in a popular American past time traditionally referred to as "sitting around and eating while watching TV." It was then that fate raised its delicate hand and prodded my younger brother to move with it.

My brother is a ninth grader named Michael and is almost mostly all of what you'd expect from a ninth grade boy.

Michael, imbued with fate, rose from the couch and began to cross the room.

It was then that my mother, previously the perfect picture of calm with her cup of tea and relaxed in the rocking chair, suddenly grabbed Michael by the shoulders. Her eyes grew to the size of Olympic discuses, and her mouth became wider than that of a hula hoop specially designed for the world's fattest man. She exclaimed, "What is THAT?"

My brother, in response to this sudden confrontation, doubled up with immediate laughter. My father and I exchanged looks, as lost in the conversation as the Pope in an Alaskan recycling plant.

Michael remained doubled over as my mother reached over and peeled a sticker from my brother's lovely generic red shirt, and held it up with an expression of half-bemusement, half "how in the world did this thing I did birth think this would ever be an intelligent act" so that my dad and I could see what all the hulabaloo was about.

What she held was a transparent, rectangular clothing sticker that had "FULL LENGTH" printed on it in bold typeface. It had been, apparently, originally on my brother's pants and Michael, ever the opportunist, thought it an ingenious action to transfer the sticker from his pants to his shirt.

Oh, the hilarity! The implications! The innuendo!

I thought it was pretty funny. Mom had other opinions. Judging from the way dad rolled his eyes, I figured he might be in agreement.

The subject was dropped when Michael continued his quest to the kitchen in search of pie, and we resumed our American TV watching traditions.

But as commercial break rolled around, the subject resurfaced like a dead body carelessly tossed in a lake with all the future ramifications of equalizing density carelessly forgotten about.

My mom was back on it. "Don't tell me any girls noticed it!" Always a top concern with the mother.

"Eh," replies my brother with all the enthusiasm of a salted slug.

The conversation continues. My mom asks who saw it. My brother informs her a scholarly peer of his, Morgana, inquired as to what the sticker's purpose was. Alas, poor innocent Morgana, completely at the mercy of my brother and his perverted ninth grade intentions. My mother empathizes.

"NO!" She practically roars, again with the half bemusement, half horror. I felt a chill as the demons of hell that powered my mother's outraged cries flew forth from her vocal chords and passed by me. "I HOPE YOU DIDN'T TELL HER IT WAS ABOUT YOUR PENIS BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE DISGUSTING!"

Ah! My mother has done it, and mentioned the dreaded P-WORD. The subtlety shattered like stained glass in a church. My dad rolled his eyes.

"OH MICHAEL," continues my mother, "YOU ARE GOING TO BECOME WEIRD TO GIRLS!"

I can't help but notice the subtle implication that he is not yet weird to girls.

"I can't believe it Michael, oh my gosh." My mother goes through Stages of Michael. They are similar to Stages of Grief, but deal with the stages she passes through upon learning that my brother has done something wonderfully stupid. She is approaching the Acceptance stage, which ironically enough is marked with phrases of "I can't believe it Michael, I can't believe it."

"It's okay, she knows me!" replies Michael.

My mother, quite rightfully, responds, "Oh God. I don't know if that means good or bad."

"Fine mom." The battle is almost done. Michael is conceding ground. "I promise not to make anymore penis jokes in front of girls."

*For the record my mother would kill me if I made any association between her and demons from hell.

Sidekicks

I will always prefer the tunes of those who play second fiddle.

OH LOL WAS THAT CORNY AS HELL OR WHAT. Cornier than an Iowa farm!

No no, in honesty though. This is something I've come to realize a lot. I was making a list one day of characters who I fell in love with from books and TV shows and the like to gain inspiration for characters of my own to write about, and I came up with a list something like this:

1. Nightcrawler (X-Men comics)
2. Tobias (Sweeney Todd, musical)
3. Samneric (Lord of the Flies)
4. Ron Weasley (Harry Potter)
5. Tweek (South Park)
6. Merry and Pippin (Lord of the Rings, movie)
7. Flycatcher (Fables)
8. Jasper (Twilight) (Go ahead and judge me I can take it)

And it went on and on, and continues to go on and on. Like right now I'd add Evra from the Cirque Du Freak series for sure because I love that guy.

But I'm realizing a trend, and when I was talking to my friend about one of these characters once he commented how I never go for the heroes. I always fall in love with their side kicks or the comic relief bits. I was wondering about that (also you could argue that some characters I listed are a mix of main and sidekick types - like Nightcrawler, but don't get me started on that).

I think it's because in the formula for your book, a lot of the good stories have the plot riding on the main character. The hero needs to be someone who can drive the plot forwards, and in a lot of the books or movies or shows I've read/watched and overall enjoyed, this has often required a certain kind of character. The hero needs to have certain qualities, like bravery or acceptance or something of the like, in order to be the hero. A lot of the characters I like can't really hold a story on their own. But that's why I like them. I think the main characters get imbued with certain traits, which means all the fun quirks and interesting character designs and flaws get gifted to the extra characters, the ones who don't have to worry about the weight of the world (so to speak) and are there for relief, to add to the backdrop or aid/hurt the hero.

Even with my villains  I tend to veer like that. I won't go all into it, but in terms of Batman I'm more a Scarecrow than Joker type. Scarecrow's big in his own name, but amongst the rogue gallery he could do with a little more respect.

I find this crops up in my writing a lot. My main characters are either more sidekick types who follow a "hero" character, but keep the focus of the story on themselves, or I use the blandest most stereotypical type A hero to simply drive the story along, while putting all my creative energies into the cast of characters that surround this hero. It's interesting to see this and realize how I need to adjust the balance.

There's not much of a point to this. I guess I'm curious as to how many other people might feel like this. Obviously, I'm a huge sidekick fan. For me, they're like the toppings on a pizza; you could have it with just cheese, but how lame would that be?*

*I recognize the fail value of this metaphor. Made doubly fail by the fact that I actually love cheese pizza. Whatever.