#I HOPE YOU WANTED LIKE 1500 WORDS OF GENERAL TEXAS THOUGHTS MY DUDE

[livelivefastfree]

Any tips on how to write Texas? (Esp romantically?)

hhhmmMMMMMmmm >:I  Well mostly I just listen to his dialogue in a bunch of episodes and then freestyle until I’m writing something I can imagine in Jess Harnell’s voice lmao.  Uh...Texas, huh?

edit: ............okay this turned into more of a character analysis than a “tips on how I write Texas” post.  I’ll sum up the tips (for gen and romantic both) at the beginning and then y’all won’t have to scroll past my novel to get what I’m saying lol.

editedit: wow I guess I had a lot to say about Texas, jeezy creezy.

tries to be good but more on a moral level than an interpersonal level

on an interpersonal level: kind of a jerk!  

Insensitive, assumes other people think/feel what he thinks/feels and therefore he can’t hurt peoples’ feelings!  Like magic!

ie: he means his jokes to be jokes, so he’s defensive and upset when people don’t also think they’re hilarious.  ((like most people, but turned up to eleven))

feels bad when he realizes he’s done bad, but doesn’t really know how to address it.  

TEXAS RUSHES IN takes action when he thinks something needs to happen, whether that’s plot-related or relationship-related.

Wants power/authority/respect--a huge motivator!

Also wants explosions/dinosaurs/dragons/muscles/stunts/any kind of fourteen-year-old-boy traditional power fantasy/action movie stuff he can get.  TIGERS!  LIGHTNING!  DYNAMITE!

Remembers everybody’s names except Julie’s

remembers Julie’s when she’s doing something cool or he’s feeling friendly toward her. 

sour grapes and denial forever!  If he can’t do something/somebody is grossly better at it than him, he’ll act like he didn’t even WANT to be good at your dumb thing ANYWAY.

If he can’t do it, he doesn’t bother to understand it or bother to value it.  (thus his beef with Chuck, I think--Chuck does things Texas just 100% doesn’t get, so he writes them off.  Chuck does 0% of the things Texas understands/values, so Chuck is like....a weird non-entity.  He’s here but he doesn’t DO things.  What does he even DO?? SCREAM apparently.)

Related to the preteen-boy aesthetic: girls have cooties, being macho is VITAL. Only interested in Boy Stuff.  Guys who aren’t “manly” like Texas OBVIOUSLY is, OBVIOUSLY would be if they could.  

“tough love”

easily moved by flattery

If inspired to give his S.O. a gift, would probably give them something HE would like, unless he put some serious intentional thought into the fact that other people don’t share his interests.

Will talk about point A, cover points B, C, D and E inside his head and then go to point F without explaining the in-between.  

does not know what the heckity is going on, but thinks he does.  Is, in fact, pretty sure he’s the only one who knows what the heckity is going on.

Honestly that might be another reason he clashes with Chuck and Julie--their jobs focus hard on gathering information and disseminating it to the group--Texas knows what’s going on and doesn’t need them!  Duh!

Will switch from first to third-person within a thought/sentence.

thinks in a really direct way, but don’t be afraid to spice up his dialgoue!  The occasional circuitous sentence, bizarre word-choice or strange descriptor for a basic object/concept.  

“Texas feels threatened by his bodacity!”

“In your face, basket case.”

“He’s the Burner who punches Kane’s gut in the FACE!!”

“You call ‘em arms, I call ‘em PUNCH-STICKS!!!”

-

Texas is, at his core, a bro!  A pretty good dude!  He tries hard, and he’s got a fundamental and immoveable moral core.  TEXAS AIN’T GOT NO TRUCK WITH EVIL!!! If he sees somebody doing something he recognizes as bad, he isn’t going to stop and wait and think about it, he’s going to take action!  If he feels a certain way, he’s going to make that known.  If he understands, like, actually understands that he did something wrong, he’ll feel bad about it.  Unfortunately when he feels bad about things he’s pretty bad at addressing those feelings, but he does actually try to be good.  But not always to be nice.

...because honestly (paradoxically) Texas is also kind of an asshole.  Like, really, to get Texas to any kind of dateable...ness....you’ve got to do a lot of work.  Like, a lot of work.  At least, if it’s somebody he’s got a track-record of being a dick to, like Julie or Chuck or....most people.  He acts really casual/friendly about it most of the time, so it gets kinda swept under the rug as roughhousing etc., but.....mm.  He makes fun of people basically constantly and his primary form of “affectionate” touching seems to be punching and Extreme Hugging.

It’s kinda great not to shy away from that!  At least, I definitely enjoy writing Texas having to deal with the fact that if you wanna smooch somebody you’re going to have to genuinely be nice to them and apologize when you’re mean, and maybe consider just plain not being mean.  ((don’t “forget” their name constantly, make an effort to notice how they feel instead of bulldozing them, don’t hit them, don’t mock them, etc.))

((I say this as a person who’s greatly enjoying writing Chuxas, mostly because I LOVE slamming their personalities and their history together to see the sparks it throws off.  ((“Youalready said it, though.  That I’m—I’m skinny, and weird, and lame and girly and—”))  Texas has a lot of thoughtless and hurtful behavior going on--even though it’s interspersed between moments where he’s nice or helpful or genuinely sweet, he’s not exactly boyfriend material at the moment!))

He DOES sometimes remember Julie’s name, but not when he’s mad at her.  He also doesn’t tend to remember the official names for tech, thing/place-names longer than one or two words, or things he dislikes/is disdainful of.  Honestly I think he remembers the names of a lot more things than he lets on, but uses incorrect names/titles to diss stuff/people.

....I mean, sometimes.  Sometimes he probably just genuinely couldn’t care less.

((This is why it’s so interesting to write shipping fic where he DOES care, where he suddenly REALLY WANTS somebody to like him and want to spend time around him--it can bring some different behavior out of him, of a kind we don’t really get to see in the show!  There’s definitely room for some beahvior that’s not his usual personality, in shipping fic--it’s just a struggle to balance that investment in other peoples’ feelings with his normal personality, and make him “Texas in an unfamiliar situation” instead of “a character vaguely resembling Texas”))

When he’s got strong emotions about stuff, he likes to take action!  When he’s got strong emotion about stuff and can’t take action, he gets frustrated!  When he’s frustrated, he has a lot of trouble expressing things in words.  Like, even more trouble than usual which is saying something.

Texas doesn’t really talk about feelings, like, basically at all.  The time he talks to Mike in Vendetta about the First Mission is the only time I can think of he’s like “huh, so you feel bad about that.  Hey, don’t feel bad.”  Even then it’s less of a “hey I’m sorry you feel bad” and more of a “hey, don’t worry about it/stop being upset”.  

I think the biggest reason he’s a jerk is that he has literally zero ability to just notice that somebody else is feeling bad.  So he just does things.  It’s like a kid who doesn’t get that other peoples’ feelings get hurt and it’s just as bad as when their feelings get hurt.  

On that vein, it seems to me that he kind of feels like “if I’m having fun, THEY’RE having fun, probably, totally I mean who cares but I’m doing a fun thing so they should be having fun!”  Like, oh man Chuck’s screaming is hilarious because he’s a guy but he sounds like a girl, and making him scream is hilarious, so he shouldn’t mind I’m doing it!  

Anyway, those are some slightly incoherent Texas thoughts, and now it’s past midnight so it’s time for me to go to bed.