#Character Casting

[ponds-of-ink]

Uhhh.. fun Nightmare Before Christmas FNAF AU fact that is probably important for later.

William Afton is also Dr. Finkelstein.

Well, a hologram/recreated ghost version of him anyway.

There’s actual lore I’m working on that explains this but TL;DR is: Actual William/Sally-Scraptrap had to make this guy in order to self-restrict his own outdoor time at one point. That’s also because of lore reasons I’m not gonna dump just yet.

..There is the alternative option that it’s his own dad’s ghost, but Iiii’m not settled on this.

[afurryinspirit]

I’m currently reading A Secret History by Donna Tartt and I’ve never casted a book in my head like this, so I’d thought I’d share. I’m aware it it truly cursed

Richard - Hajime Hinata from Danganronpa 2

Henry - Kyoya from Ouran High School Host Club

Francis - Hikaru from Ouran High School Host Club

Camilla and Charles - Luna Lovegood and M! Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter

Bunny - Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club

[a-drama-addict]

not caring too much about a fandom’s favourite guy is the worst. you’ll think “oh i’ll look into the tag see if anything new and cool’s there” and it’s just that fucking guy again

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Expanding a thought from a conversation this morning:

In general, I think "Is X out-of-character?" is not a terribly useful question for a writer. It shuts down possibility, and interesting directions you could take a character.

A better question, I believe, is "What would it take for Character to do X?" What extremity would she find herself in, where X starts to look like a good idea? What loyalties or fears leave him with X as his only option? THAT'S where a potentially interesting story lies.

In practice, I find that you can often justify much more from a character than you initially dreamed you could: some of my best stories come from "What might drive Character to do [thing he would never do]?" As long as you make it clear to the reader what the hell pushed your character to this point, you've got the seed of a compelling story on your hands.

[lackadaisycal-art]

I'm getting so sick of major female characters in historical media being incredibly feisty, outspoken and public defenders of women's rights with little to no realistic repercussions. Yes it feels like pandering, yes it's unrealistic and takes me out of the story, yes the dialogue almost always rings false - but beyond all that I think it does such a disservice to the women who lived during those periods. I'm not embarrassed of the women in history who didn't use every chance they had to Stick It To The Man. I'm not ashamed of women who were resigned to or enjoyed their lot in life. They weren't letting the side down by not having and representing modern gender ideals. It says a lot about how you view average ordinary women if the idea of one of your main characters behaving like one makes them seem lame and uninteresting to you.

[upon-the-snow]

I can’t believe it took me this long to draw her!

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[anna-scribbles]

old doodles from the archives 🫶

[ribbonentrails]

Took a long time to complete my first run, so it's only right to celebrate it by doing an equally long piece of the companions 🫶

[livingmeatloaf]

There is only one way to make a truly wonderful Avatar adaptation, not matter how bad it turns out to be:

A professionally shot, full length stage production of the Ember Island Players' Fire Nation propaganda version of the events

[sunlitsorrows]

Hmmmmmmmmm except…

I really like the idea of having a deaf/hoh character but I’m not sure it works for JONATHAN. Too much of his character is… opinions/commentary on the overheard. And he’s really objecting to the amount of Looking At People he would have to do to hold a conversation if he’s deaf.

Maybe Grantham? (Still flipping a coin on Graham or Grantham)

Being a sort of surrogate father to Jonathan and Henry both, it would make sense for them to know/learn/have created a sign language to communicate with him in, so I could keep that aspect…

But that leaves me back at square one with keeping Jonathan more or less out of things for the first few arcs.

Of course I could lean into his avoidant tendencies/aspergers and have him just… not want to. No we’re not investigating that we’re not investigating anything we’re not investigators get back here you idiots you’re going to get yourselves murdered…

That could work.

And now that he’s back downstairs I have to come up with something for Eleanor’s blackmail box…

And it’s not like a don’t have a surplus of ideas for Jonathan’s tragic backstory, he’s my tragic backstory dumping ground character, but I’m trying to keep this slightly lighter fare than my usual… I could go back to the boxing idea, like, that he’s been moonlighting for extra cash, which is something that could get him fired, but not super dark/too soon, and I could leave the Big Horrible Thing mostly subtext in the way he interacts with the other characters.

Which just leaves me with giving him a profession. He could be the hotel handyman I suppose? Like if a light isn’t working or the pipes are making a funny noise he looks at it first to see if it’s something he can fix or if hotel management needs to call an actual electrician or plumber?

[lackadaisycats]

Lackadaisy Voice Cast + Crew are doing a signing and Q&A stream tomorrow!

Saturday, June 8th.

Starts at 2pm PT on the Lackadaisy YouTube Channel.

Come by to hangout and chat! Or, if you'd like a live-signed book or print, pick one up in the Lackadaisy Streamily Shop!

[idolomantises]

Man is it just me or are a lot of TV shows nowadays are written to have big emotional episodes in scenes with very little build up.

[ryllen]

a small taste of magic casting

[bixels]

Scary Sunset.

I'm concepting things way outta order in this story, but I'm sure you can piece things together. Context is for a storybeat where, after defeating and capturing Adagio (thus having all three sirens in her possession), Sunset enacts her revenge plot to release the sirens on Canterlot as Thea discovers she's been manipulated. In a confrontation, the two scuffle and fight over the siren orbs while Sunset struggles with her conflicting wants and emotions.

[mooselybased]

So I wanted to draw a lil' something in celebration of The Adventure Zone hitting ten years old this year! Which turned into me drawing a pretty big something featuring (almost) every player character from (almost) every campaign from these past ten years.

So here's to Adventure Zone Balance, Amnesty, Commitment, Dust, Graduation, Hootenanny, Ethersea, Dadlands, Steeplechase, Versus Dracula, and everything that's still to come!