#mostly on the characterization

[homoeroticvillain]

uwahh im making up for the not great drabble yesterday by having wrote smth completely different. this is actually the first part of a crossover fic im writing. idk if ill post all of it on here or mostly just end up waiting 'til its done so i can post it on ao3 but whatever here it is

Victor stared at the plant Vincent had very carefully placed on the window sill of their dorm. It was obviously still growing and Victor watched Vincent faithfully water it every day. It was the only plant present in their dorm, considering that most of the belongings Vincent brought with him were thick legal books and Victor had always killed any plants he had when he was younger. He thought it was sweet honestly, that Vincent very obviously cared for the little guy but on the other hand, Victor was getting a little jealous. Not that he’d ever admit it under pain of death but sometimes he caught Vincent gazing softly at the plant and he couldn’t help the tinge of jealousy that ran through him. 

“Victor. Why are you glaring at Charley Jr?” Vincent strode into the room having just come back from a class. He set his book at his desk and leveled a stare at his roommate.

“I wasn’t glare- Charley Jr?” Victor halted his excuses in bewilderment and looked over at Vincent, who had perched himself on the side of his desk, just to see his cheeks flushed. He clearly hadn’t meant to let that name slip. 

“I- yes, his name is Charley Jr. Don’t change the subject, why were you glaring at him?” Vincent was trying his best to act nonchalant but Victor wasn’t blind. Victor couldn’t help but grin at Vincent attempting his usual glare while his cheeks were still flushed that delightful pink.

“I think you’re the one trying to change the subject here, my dear. I wasn’t aware our other roommate had a name. Care to expand on that?” Victor watched Vincent’s flush even more at the pet name, he was so getting out of having to confess that he was jealous of a plant.

“I- He’s- Uh…” Vincent looked over at Victor’s shit eating grin, and resigned himself to explaining this, “I didn’t choose the name, I just propagated it from the original Charley-”

“Charley Sr. you mean?” 

“I- I guess, yes. My sister is the one who actually proclaimed him Charley Jr. and it just stuck I suppose.” Victor watched as Vincent fiddled with the edge of his suit jacket during his explanation. The man really was so unintentionally cute sometimes. 

“Hmm, I didn’t know you had a sister. But really? I never knew you to be such a big plant guy that you’d be propagating them.” Victor had always thought Vincent was an only child but he supposes he was wrong. Him having a sister actually makes sense when Victor thinks about it, he wonders if she’s younger or older. Maybe he’ll ask later.

“Ah, I’m not really. But when I was young I realized that Charley-” Vincent sighed again, “Charley Sr. meant a lot to my family so I researched how to care for him properly, since I wanted to be helpful. I suppose it worked considering he’s been healthy for almost 15 years now.” Vincent was idly organizing his text books on his desk as he talked.

“You really are adorable sometimes, Vincent.” Victor softly smiled at his roommate and saw a soft look returned his way before Vincent forced a stern look onto his face.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what, dear?”

“Stop.”

Victor laughed as Vincent swatted at him. He had made his way across the room and was trying to plant a big sloppy kiss on Vincent’s cheek. Victor realized there was no need for him to be jealous over a plant. Although he was *so* laughing at Vincent if he ever saw him reading Leviathan to his plant, which was soundly like a pretty likely scenario at this rate.

[nonasbirthday]

Tbh? I don't like Paul. I don't want Paul. I understand that Paul serves an important narrative function and that Paul is the best possible ending for Camilla and Palamedes given their situation, personalities, and relationship. However what I really want is for Camilla and Palamedes to attend the ATN wedding as two individual humans and for Pal to be a lightweight who loses his tie in the garden fountain after three drinks and for Camilla to do exactly one shot with the group, keep Gideon from ripping the sleeves off her dress shirt, and absolutely kill it at lawn games during cocktail hour. Since this scenario is a wild tonal mismatch for the series and also Palamedes was already dead, this was unlikely to ever happen. However Paul is the final nail in the coffin for the theoretical existence of this scene and I can't help but resent them for that

[ratcandy]

under no circumstance will i ever take narinder seriously sorry

[starwrighter]

1/?? Halloween prompt

I’ve got brain rot for creepy Deadserious content but only when it’s only seen as creepy by outsiders. (I know I’m writing a fic with a similar plot but it’s different I swear! Also my grammar is shit because I’m getting dental work done tomorrow and I’m nervous) Tw for stalker behavior

So Damian has a crush on Danny and immediately goes about acting on these feelings much to onlookers horror. Danny is swooning because someone made the effort to do a background check on him. Danny thinks Damian doing this is really smart because, he could be a serial killer for ancients sake why would you risk that? Others say this is a horrible invasion of privacy.

Damian not realizing he's being creepy (being liminal and being an ex assassin, turned vigilante wasn't doing him any favors) Plus Danny also not realizing it's creepy unless you relay Damian behavior towards him with different names.

Damian's just being a textbook stalker, breaking into his house and shit and Danny's all like "awwww he likes me" because this is just normal ghostly courting rituals! His dormroom isn't his lair so Damian breaking in doesn't feel like he's violating any sort of boundary. To him it's like a friend showing up at the coffee shop you work at to say hi.

Danny's had stalkers before, he's very cautious of his behavior to insure he never stalked anyone. Being stalked back in Amity was a horrific experience for him. From cameras in the locker rooms at school (wes) to cameras in his bathroom and bedroom at home (Vlad)! He couldn't feel safe anywhere! To Danny Damian's not a stalker, he's his protector. Nobody seems to understand when he tries to explain this though they just look at him like he's lost his mind.

Damian’s not subtle at all and Danny’s kicking his feet like a lovesick school girl who found out her crush likes her back. Overall it’s super cute from their points of view Damian’s planning an official confession to ask him on a date while Danny’s trying to figure out if Damian actually likes him or is just being nice. They’re just doing normal couple things but people just jump and attack Damian’s character while painting Danny as some kind of brainwashed victim.

The thing is… Danny’s become very good at appearing normal while Damian refuses to pretend to be a bumbling idiot like the rest of his family. He also refuses to dull down his personality for anything other than secret identity reasons. For these reasons since their relationship had become public, Damian had been painted by the media as a creepy possessive boyfriend who threatened Danny into a relationship. This infuriates Danny, the only one doing any kind of possession is him god damn it!

They want to be around each other all the time and that’s normal behavior for ghost/liminal couples! They live much longer than regular humans do they’re like elves, their perceptions of time are messed up. They still spend time apart they still have hobbies and an independent life, people just get hung up on the amount of time they do spend together. It’s normal behavior for them to know mountains of information about each others interests to the point they almost know more than each other. It’s normal to know each other’s schedules and background check the people they associate with. (The realms are very dangerous with shapeshifters and manipulators like spectra and Desiree who can ruin your afterlife in a matter of minutes) Their relationship is creepy to those who haven’t gone to extremes to survive.

Damian has taken to ignoring the reputation press has given him. He’s dealt with paparazzi and tabloids before it’s just frustrating to deal with. It’s when people start accusing him of hurting his beloved that really pisses him off.

(Bonus if Danny’s the one frothing at the mouth to maul a reporter while they try to paint him as a poor innocent victim)

I’mma end the prompt with this so everyone understands why Damian specifically being targeted by press. The more liminal you are the more creepy/uncanny you appear to other people and the more effort you have to put in to hide it. It’s why the bats are more believed to be Eldritch creatures than actual humans in suits. Surprisingly becoming a Halfa completely changes this effect to do the complete opposite. It’s easier for the human brain to look at a halfa and think “Innocent or normal,” Vlad and Danny were morons when it came to actually hiding their identity’s it was only their statuses as halfa’s that prevented people from comprehending them being anything other than normal.

In short Damian’s too dead to be perceived as normal while Danny’s too alive to be perceived as anything other than normal.

[audhd-nightwing]

okay. DC fandom. i get having negative opinions, especially on fanon stuff. but you don’t need to go after people who write/draw fanon you dislike?? if you don’t like it, ignore it. maybe recommend some comics disproving that fanon if you’re really upset about it. but don’t hate on people for being creative in a fandom space!!!

i’ve seen way too many people actively shit on people who are just having fun with fanon and it’s extremely disheartening. if you have Opinions about it, just post it separately! there’s no need to reply/reblog just to be a dickhead about it! (or, even better, be nice about it! encourage people to read your favorite comics! offer suggestions!)

especially with people who are new to the fandom and are scared to/haven’t had the chance to read comics/don’t know where to start. it’s intimidating! plus canon is a mess in and of itself with DC letting literally anyone write their characters and drastically changing their personalities/core beliefs

so just. don’t be an asshole. okay?

[kiwikipedia]

it’s actually astounding how quickly a fandom can devolve a well-written Character to One (1) Character Trait They Exhibited Once Forever

[unexpectedstormy]

A post in which I talk about how I, a Wild-centric fanfic author, like to characterize Wild /pos

So I've read a TON of Wild fics. Not all of them, but a whole bunch, and let me tell you, I love every version of Wild, every characterization. Brooding and angsty? Cool! Goofy and silly? Heck yeah! Competent experienced knight? Awesome! Feral gremlin? One of my favorites! I like kid!Wild, fox!Wild, wolf!Wild, winged!Wild, and every other variation I've come across.

So when I wanted to start writing Wild fics, I had to decide what way I wanted to portray him as: what felt right to me, what agreed with LU canon, what agreed with the game(s)... It was quite the head scratcher because all of those ways I mentioned earlier are valid and logical conclusions. I thought about it alot and this is what I came up with:

In BotW, Wild’s personality is primarily defined by two factors: his previous training or “programming” as a royal knight which although isn’t remembered, it is still there, serving as the framework guiding his thoughts and actions, and by his lack of memory (and baggage) and childlike lack of knowledge and experience of the world (remember when you started the game and he didn't know what an apple or a stick was?).

I had a breakthrough though when I was watching a BotW Let’s Play: I realized that Wild is basically every BotW Let’s Player ever (actually, every player) because everyone starts Breath of the Wild with their own life experiences guiding their thought processes and actions but they come to the game with no knowledge of how anything works in the game or what the story is.

So, all I had to do is write Wild like how I play him, or how my favorite Let’s Players play him: lighthearted and cheerful, pretty clueless about social interaction, wanting to help others but not knowing how to beyond providing practical help, logical and strategic problem solver but without memories, he ends up doing things in unorthodox ways. He's a talented fighter and can use any weapon, but big picture battle strategy is not his strong suit. He's a sticky-fingered goblin in the towns but he's always very helpful to anyone he meets.

While I do tend to write him as more the silly, goofy, gremlin style, I do recognize and include that he does have a troubled past, and he can be dramatically angsty and he does go wordless sometimes, but I figure there's a threshold for it. He's normally very resilient and bounces back easily from "Oh man, what an intense memory that was" to "ooh shiny carrot! Mine now!"

But there's a point when things get tough and he drops below the "bounce back" level, he can revert to his old knightly ways of silence, emotional suppression, anxiety, self-sacrificial tendencies, plus the troubles of having only 1-2 years-worth of memory/experience (and ADHD) like issues with emotional regulation, conflict resolution, excessive guilt, confusion, flashbacks, etc. I figure it takes a lot to knock him down to that level, but when it does happen, it takes a lot of time and support for him to revert back to his usual happy-go-lucky self.

In summary, to me, Wild is a cheerful goofy teenager, a scrappy and competent fighter, a knight with a troubled past, and a good kid.

******

What's you favorite way to portray Wild? I'd love to hear it. (But please keep your thoughts to yourself if you're going to be critical, a Wild hater, or if your input starts with "I dislike/hate it when..." I'd like to keep this post as positive as possible.)

[interstate35south]

THIS close to making a 71 slide powerpoint rating every dislyte ship out of ten bc like everybody’s so creative slash pos but also slash neg

[seleneprince]

Unpopular opinion:

Remus Lupin was as capable of cruelty and arrogance as the rest of the Marauders. There are plenty of hints of this in canon. The only reason we don't see this side of him as often is because of his heavy reluctante to be considered a "bad guy".

And he low-key enjoyed going against Snape just as much, he just had some conscience aftewards.

[ladyofthenoodle]

i understand why many people are upset over chloe’s storylines in season 5 but seeing canon episodes described as “chloe salt” is truly mind boggling. salt is a fan reaction, the episodes themselves are not salt, you are salty about the episodes.

[madderruz]

[phoenixyfriend]

Saw a post. Got to thinking. Am now wondering how my interpretation of characters differs from the canon, and how much of that is:

Deliberate and reasonable: in a 'fighting against canon-authorial biases' way (e.g. taking queer-coded characters to actually queer, addressing the religious stereotypes and racism baked into certain characters, expanding a female characters motivations in ways that don't match up to canon but do match up to Logical Thinking Human Behavior, updating language and slang to not include slurs, etc.)

Reasonable: in a 'yeah, I guess if you stretch your extrapolation of the canon, or focus on this part of the narrative, you can get there without contradicting the rest too much' kind of way

Deliberate: started nearly canon, and then 'ooc' but as an understandable result of the fic's events

Semi-Deliberate: kind of an art style thing, where it's definitely That Character, but through the author's specific style of dialogue and prose; author-tinted glasses, if you will

Semi-Deliberate: the author was trying, but kind of juggled too many things and you can tell that they slipped too far away from canon, and realized it, but didn't have the time/energy to fix it

Deliberate: different from canon, but within an acceptable standard deviation from the canon/mean

Deliberate: different from canon, in a sort of an AU-where-character-is-X, rather than just a different lens or the result of the fic events

Deliberate: ...but you should have honestly just made an OC, this is basically a different, new character

Probably not deliberate: different, but in a way that's kind of just. off-putting, and not particularly self-aware on the part of the author.

Feel free to reblog and have fun, and use this to talk about your own writing but DO NOT use this to vague and talk smack about other authors in your fandoms. Be Nice.

[zoobus]

Love when you can tell an artist is having fun

[some-pers0n]

The worst thing is when canon itself flanderizes the characters. Not in a way where it's like "oh you don't understand these characters having multiple facets to them" but rather "the writers themselves do not understand these characters" Like somehow the nuances of them in the main source material gets lost the longer it goes on

Like I could forgive a random fanfic writer or something for flanderizing them and boiling them down to their most surface level traits. Fine. That's what you expect from fandom. When it's done by the actual writers itself is where true darkness lies

[malevolententity]

i think no matter what happens between bolas and soulfire its going to be so interesting between bbh cellbit. cellbit lost his son 2 months ago. cellbit Just lost his husband. theres absolutely nothing stopping him anymore. bolas is fully supporting him in purgatory anything he says theyll follow because they admittedly dont want to win, they just want soulfire to loose.

purgatory is absolutely triggering cellbit and bbh back to their hunger games thought process. bbh who raised and trained and Shaped cellbit into the hunger games strategist he is. cellbit is on a full vengeance path. when they meet again and its the final wire who will win? because either way will be glorious for their personal stories. will the mentor put down his student? will the studen outsmart and outplay his mentor because he learned everything bbh knows and picked up some strategies after they parted ways?

will they return to the island and everything is water under the bridge understanding that it was a loose loose situation? or will resentment stay despite knowing the situation because the feelings in purgatory Are real. i can not Wait to see how these two make each other worse

[shadowshrike]

I promised myself I wouldn't get mired in the weird moral chaos that is bg3's fandom, but I have a legitimate question: for a lot of fans, is this the first time playing with Choose Your Own Adventure stories?

The writing seems to be classic CYOA in the epilogues, at least with the evil post-game companions I've experienced. If you roleplay someone happy with your choices, the game generally reflects that those choices were satisfying in the exact way you'd expect. If you roleplay someone who regrets your choices or has doubts, it usually reflects that you should regret those choices. Either way, the "reader" is given a predictable response in order to fulfill their desired narrative.

Don't believe me? Go through the epilogue and try to play a character who both likes and hates every companion or where they ended up. Some changes are subtle while others are more dramatic. A few quick examples, all from a single save: Playing a character who hates Halsin, though you romanced him, your conversation is short, civil only because Halsin is too mature to rise to your insults, and stilted. He's a distant companion that you've pushed away successfully.

Playing a character who loves Halsin and romanced him, the conversation between you is extraordinarily long and sweet, and you are written as dear to each other. It includes, potentially: sharing stories and teasing him about his more salacious ones, talking about his love of children (and them loving the bear), learning how he's settled into his new life, hearing about him finally finding happiness, being welcomed into his community, welcoming him to share in drinks, and even joyfully adopting an owlbear. This image is just the very beginning of it.

Playing a character who disapproves of Shar but encourages Shadowheart to follow Shar anyway, you get a zealot's lecture about how you're being naive, thinking that Shar's exploiting people, likely confirming your feeling that she's a lost-cause cultist now. The happiness in the conversation is one-sided (from Shadowheart).

Playing a character who is fine with Shar and encourages Shadowheart to follow Shar, you get a short, sincere thank you, and she immediately starts trying to bond with you. The tone of the conversation remains upbeat as she expresses how pleased she is with the church despite its difficulties and how she'd do everything again in a heartbeat.

Playing a character who doesn't like being an immortal consort, but ascended Astarion and agreed to it anyway, gives you an Anne Rice-like fight between bitter eternal lovers. You also get some petulant dragging of your friends.

Playing a character who loves being an immortal consort and ascended Astarion gets you the dark fantasy of all-powerful monsters in love, gleefully ruling and exploiting the world (along with your friends and probably each other) together.

These are all valid endings to the exact same story with very different implications for the future. It's easy to muddy the potential narratives if you try to hold all the unique, mutually exclusive dialog options together.

Remember, at the end of the day, this is written as a linear experience. Everyone's epilogue choices are self-contained in their own story, even if it's possible to reload and choose a different final page. Have fun fishing for unhappy endings if the drama gives the flavor you enjoy, or seek out happy endings if you want to feel fulfilled by your choices. Just know that not everyone will experience or want to experience the same ending for an otherwise identical set of choices in game. That's the cool part of getting to choose your own adventure.