[Celyn]

I love character development. I feel I'm more interested in character development and the relationships between characters than I am the plot sometimes!

My favourite is probably Once Upon a Time, specifically Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold and Regina/Evil Queen. I feel that out of all the characters on the show, they are the ones that we really get to know. Their characters are in almost every episode, but over the course of the show we learn so much about them; I feel they are the characters with the richest backstories. And it's so heart-warming to see the development as at the end of the show they are nothing like how they were at the beginning.

I feel this way about Peter Parker/Spiderman (Tom Holland), especially his character in the Avengers films, and how he was the enthusiastic but bored friendly neighborhood spiderman but had to overcome challenges to be a hero, including realising that being a hero isn't easy and that it's not always the action packed saving the day kind of stuff. In a way, Iron Man/Tony Stark as well as he kind of became a father figure to Peter, even though he himself didn't have a great relationship with his own father.

I also love the Doctor Who series, though that's more about the relationships between the doctor and his companions and they can't really be compared since each companion is different and the Doctor also regenerates. But I really enjoyed the Doctor and River Song (Doctor's wife) storyline as that spans several versions of the Doctor but their timelines only intertwine at certain points so sometimes one is a stranger to the other and yet the other has all the knowledge of what they are going to do and be like in the future. It's really good watching it back and being able to notice that. I particularly love the husbands of river song episode <3

For those in the UK, the soap EastEnders as well. There are characters on there who have struggled a lot (storylines of domestic abuse, substance abuse etc) and it's so satisfying when things go well for them or you find yourself desperately wishing that things work out for them. Also, the hospital series Holby City...the CEO of the hospital, Henrik Hanssen, is often quite a serious and distant person, but it's been really enjoyable watching him letting his guard go down when he had to baby sit his grandson or when getting close to a colleague. Or being vulnerable when opening up about his past abuse as a child to help someone else having gone through the same thing. Also, briefly, the relationship between Merlin and Arthur, in the show Merlin and how close they became even though for most of the show, Arthur often didn't treat Merlin very well as he saw him as just a servant but they became more like brothers <3