#characterization thoughts

[championdaigo]

free space to say anything you want about steven im so interested in your thoughts

This ask has been sitting in my inbox for a while now because I've been unsure about how I want to go about attacking it (you've given me such a gift, anon)

But I think I'll use this as an opportunity to publicly share a long line of characterization thoughts I discussed one day in the steven stone appreciation discord server (compiled below the cut, it's going to be kinda messy)

Personally i like to see Steven as someone who has everything to lose. He’s smart, rich, educated, handsome, a skilled battler, and a regional darling. This is going to be controversial but I think he had a loving family and a fulfilling (albeit very sheltered) upbringing. He seems like the kind of guy who could very easily get anything he wanted. But i also see him as someone who’s aware of that and puts in genuine effort to see reality outside of his bubble.

I see him as someone who never really experienced personal tragedy growing up, and as someone who a few members of the general public could get frustrated with for “privilege-blindness”. Like he’s someone who was basically placed on a high rung at birth but still needed to climb upwards. Most people love him (rightfully so) but others are more than ready to have a reason to throw rocks at him. I think I take this approach mainly because I'm really fascinated by IRL celebrity culture from an outsider's perspective

But, in his core, he's a good guy with healthy morals who has much to learn about the world around him.

and now for some shitpost headcanons

beldum was a devon corp invention originally intended to be a smart can opener. it accidentally gained sentience and became the president's young son's best friend

steven's mother isn't dead or even absent. she just happened to be visiting kalos during the events of the hoenn games and had the shock of her life finding out about the weather crisis through buzznav's emergency alerts (steven had twenty-seven missed calls from mom during this time)

steven's perception of money is very much the "it's one banana what could it cost 10 dollars" meme. this is both a positive and a negative

steven has a relatively sharp sense of style except when it comes to casual wear (that summer outfit is divorcecore)

[curlytsunamiart]

a confrontation between miquella and messmer in the shadow keep throne room

[frownyalfred]

omegaverse batfamily is great and I've read so many of those platonic fics, but imagine a universe where it's just omega!Bruce wandering around screaming "NO!" every time a random pup pops up and tries to follow him home. he doesn't want to nest with them. he has 0 maternal instincts. he growls when they come near him. that doesn't seem to matter, they still want to nest with him. lonely pups see this energy from far away and say oh yeah, that's who I want to live with. that omega over there who knocked out all of that guy's teeth with one hit. he looks strong.

[necrotic-nephilim]

as much as I love the common "Tim worships/stalks Jason" trope in TimJay fanfiction because it's Good and making Tim a weird little freak is Fun, I think the underutilized dynamic is where Jason is the one weirdly obsessed with Tim and makes it Tim's problem.

Like, the moment Jason is confronted with the information that a third Robin exists, the first thing he does is cover his wall with pictures of Tim so he can just obsess and torture himself over it. That is the behavior of a man who is Unwell over Tim's existence and I love it.

red hood: lost days #4

And as much as a shitshow as The Titans Tower Incident™ is characterization-wise (though I think it has far more merit in depicting Jason's character than people give it credit for but I digress-) there's something very fun about the fact that even after kicking his ass, Jason respects Tim and is impressed by him.

teen titans (2003) #29

And on top of that, Jason can't seem to stop trying to ask Jason to Tim to work with him in some capacity.

robin (1993) #177

batman: battle for the cowl #2

While Battle for the Cowl is an exceptionally bad comic, especially for its characterization of Jason and the "be my Robin" bit is taken deeply out of context, I do think it's interesting how obsessed Jason is with believing that Tim is extremely competent, only held back by being "brainwashed by Bruce". (hence him leaving Tim for dead later on in the comic.) Jason seeing a darker side of Tim and wanting to bring that out of Tim, wanting to see what Tim could be if he let go of his loyalty to Bruce is so fun to me, tbh.

And in Robin #177, Jason seems genuinely upset Tim doesn't want to work with him. Jason sees such a raw potential in Tim and is obsessed with it, constantly wanting Tim to work for him and see Tim be the type of person Jason is. And despite Tim rejecting him, Jason doesn't shoot to kill Tim. I just cannot get over the fanfic potential of Jason obsessing over Tim, tracking him and seeing what he's capable of and what he could be capable of. Wanting to make Tim see things the way he does. To Tim it's corruption, to Jason it's freedom. Tim trying to 'save' Jason is fun and all, but Jason trying to corrupt Tim? That's even more fun to me. Watching that power struggle between them, Tim unable to get Jason off his heels as Jason gets more and more possessive and bold with each attempt.

And when Jason sees Tim successfully get Gotham back under control after a gang war, he's impressed. He praises Tim, even. And then Tim just. Breaks him out of prison.

robin (1993) #182

The way they're constantly trying to see something in the other that isn't there, hoping the other will come around? That is the most fucked up hate/love dynamic ever. Jason keeps coming back to Tim, keeps trying to find ways to get Tim onto his side. They're always chasing each other. And I think Jason would be the one to confess love first, the one to do anything to make Tim his. And when you consider after all of this, Tim has his Red Robin arc and is at his lowest, getting the closest he ever gets to considering murder? I think it'd be so fun to see Jason take advantage of that and worm his way back into Tim's life and finally push Tim over the edge.

[zykamiliah]

i think one of the most satisfying turns the bkdk/dkbk fandom experience has taken for me is that, when you read fanworks from 2021 or earlier you get the tsundere kacchan who'd never admit to feeling any kind of love related feeling to deku. and then i look at how canon went down and can't help the mad cackling because man we had no idea. we thought katsuki was gonna be like "as if i like you shitty deku go die *in denial*" for eternity. and hori really say: nuh uh. this boy COMMITS. this boy is gonna be SO OBSESSED and DEVOTED and he's gonna OWN IT. he's gonna be all "i'm gonna die thinking about him, i'm the one who steps up when that nerd can't take care of it, i'm bakugo kacchan, i actually want to spend my life at his side as heroes and i'll dedicate 8 years to making sure that happens". he's gonna be all determined and straightforward and *extending his hand* "come, deku! (let's chase each other for the rest of our lives!) (i'll keep your dream alive!)"

like. we had no fucking idea man añkdsjalkjlñksjalkjahlsdk

[boar-cry]

somewhere, beneath the fog, you know someone is waiting for you. (you have to keep going.)

so take a breath. rest for a bit. but you must continue.

[enviedear]

JASON TODD has become quite good at pushing people away, keeping his distance so he doesn't get hurt again. it’s second nature by now—detach, deflect, disappear. but with you, it’s like every wall he’s ever built starts crumbling the moment you look at him. he’ll find himself staring at his phone, rereading texts from you, overanalyzing the little things. did you mean something more when you told him “i miss you”? or are you just being nice?

and when you’re around, he’s hyper-aware of every detail—the way you laugh, the sound of your voice, how your hand sometimes brushes his arm like it’s no big deal, but it is to him. and that’s the problem. he’s spent years telling himself he doesn’t need anyone, that caring only leads to pain, but now he can’t stop. it’s like you’ve found a way under his skin, and no matter how hard he tries to fight it, thoughts of you lingers in the back of his mind.

what scares him the most is the realization that he’d do anything to keep you safe. anything. he’d put himself at risk, make enemies, burn bridges—hell, he’d burn the whole hellscape that is gotham city down if it meant protecting you. that’s not the kind of person he wants to be again, the one willing to sacrifice everything for someone else. but every time he tries to pull away, to put distance between you, it backfires. because the thought of losing you feels worse than anything else. and he’s not ready to face what that means, not yet.

[mint-fixates]

I want to make an AU where Bill was never evil but his personality is still the same outside of that so the Pines twins show up to stay with their Great Uncle Stanford and he introduces them to his husband who's just. A funky little chaotic triangle creature from another dimension. He gives them deer teeth as welcome presents and both he and Ford (who is extremely accustomed to his weirdness after 30 years together) act like that's a Perfectly Normal Thing to Do. Dipper is LOSING it, Mabel is LOVING it (she makes a necklace and earrings out of them)

[wanologic]

Danny wakes up. It feels different now that he’s older. Now that he’s both more and less than he was. He starts mornings out floaty, his edges indistinct, bleeding into his surroundings. He’s hyper-aware of the tentative strings connecting him to life, the blood pumping sluggishly through his veins, the breath expanding the lungs within his chest. 

He yawns. A stretch.

His brain feels like an old computer booting up, each process coming online in a slow, methodical order. Neurons firing, electric pulses traveling up and down the webbed network of sinew tangled through his skeleton. He feels the pressure of atmosphere on his skin, the floor under his feet.

It’s weird. Not uncomfortable, just strange. It’s been years, but it’s never been easy to come to terms with the new awareness of his physicality, the control he could exert over its expression and shape. What once was instinctual, settled, now flows through his fingers like water, rising and falling with the rhythm of his chest. He would say that he’s just tired, that he’s never been a morning person, but the simmer of dawn and the infinite thrumming energy beneath his skin beg to differ.

He makes his way to the bathroom. He might have walked, but probably not, he can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter. There are only friends here. He’s safe. Home.

The routine of the morning is grounding. Always the same. Jazz says it should help. That it can all become instinctual again, through enough repetition. Danny isn’t so sure.

He takes his time putting together his outfit, picking accessories and being mindful of the way it all fits against him. His body might be a projection, something just to the left of real, but clothes are normal, socks, rings, a watch. He can feel normal like this. 

Another stretch. 

He wants to scream.

He makes his way down to the shared living space. He’s grateful that he’s not crammed into a tiny apartment with strangers, that he’s allowed both the time and space to be what he is. Sam’s parents may not be the most accommodating, but this is worth every glare and snide, underhanded comment he’s had to put up with for the better part of the past decade.

He knows what comes next, but his stomach rolls in his gut. He should have something solid, go through the remaining motions of self-care, even if it’s a bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit. 

He grimaces and grabs a less-than-pleasant nutritional shake from the fridge. They’re supposed to be back up, an addition-to rather than in-replacement-of, but it’s early and he can’t bring himself to care. He finds himself on the roof, with the chilled bite of the morning and the chalky pseudo-chocolate flavor of his breakfast on his tongue.

He longs to shed this husk, to leave the weight of his flesh behind and see what the sunrise looks like from ten thousand feet. But it’s a Tuesday and he has an 8am. He wants equally to be the college student he is, to sit with his peers and bring numbers to their algorithmic conclusions—to describe the world around him in a way that makes sense, in a way that’s objectively true. One day he might even be able to describe what happened to him in a neat little equation. 

He breathes in and out, feeling heavy in his body. This is nice too, he supposes. He shuts his eyes and feels the brunt of the morning sun peek over the neighboring apartment complex. When he hears his friends shuffling about in their own morning fugue states, he sinks back inside. 

Tucker just about jumps out of his skin when he turns around, eyes half closed, to see Danny dressed and ready, silent, and much too close behind him.

Laughter peels through the house as Danny is chased through the halls and somehow he feels human.

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[azen13]

CW: Yandere Themes,

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Just a quick thought: Yandere!Sunday who is a galactic pop superstar.

He sees you at one of his concerts during a slower song when he looks up from the piano keys, floating in a sea of faces. Instantly you stand out to him. There's something chimerical in this moment, he thinks.

When he finishes up the set, quickly moving backstage to prepare for the next set, he makes a decision: he has to know more.

You get invited backstage after the concert, truly a dream. He sits on a plush light grey sofa, calmly smiling at you as he does to all his fans, but his golden eyes glitter and swirl with unreadable emotions. You've intrigued him.

Every moment that passes after this meeting seems to topple over like dominoes placed by a steady and swift hand. Invites to secret sessions turn into tickets offered over social media. Slowly, Sunday pulls you into his world, makes you his greatest muse. When the songs on his latest album are picked apart, atom by atom, the analysts surmise that there must be someone. And when Sunday responds to these allegations at a concert with a sly smile and a glint in his eyes, his fanbase erupts, demanding to know more.

But they will know nothing, Sunday thinks as he walks backstage, taking off his mic and his opulent outfit. He returns to his hotel room that evening to see you, safe and sound, your breathtaking eyes still painted in strange shades and hues from when he sung songs meant just for you.

He asks you if you would like to go to Penacony with him to watch him sing in the Charmony Festival, and you reply with bright eyes and a smile on your face.

One day very soon, Sunday will sing a song that will send the entire universe into an eternal dream. But in this moment, your beautiful, foolish mind completely ensnared by his siren-like voice, he feels like he is dreaming.

[miscellaneoussketchlog]

[madamemiz]

votv is really clever in how it makes you care about dr. kel as a protagonist despite that he barely has a tangible presence in the game

for the first few days, aside from a name in an email, you don't have much to go on. there are what appear to be fun/nerdy stickers on his suitcase and he brought emergency toilet paper and a plushy with him to his solitary job in the middle of nowhere. so he's maybe a bit practical, a little quirky, but those are just crumbs of information, and these sort of first person games tend to lean a little more on the self-insert side anyway. without much else to go on, the next handful of quiet days proceed with you easily slipping into his shoes, forgetting he exists as the protagonist. you're doing the job, you're cleaning your base, you're getting creeped out by every random noise. you live here now. the game is clever about making you care about the base too, but that's a post for another day

time passes, and little by little, you notice small details that add up. the strange and specific nightmares about work and drowning and mannequins. the roaches you can eat with no ill effects that give you a food boost to boot. the clumsy tendency to trip and fall over pretty much anything, the pickiness over food

you save up enough to get a kerfur, have the bright idea to check their camera while they're in the room with you, and there you see it in the camera; not you, but him. maybe he looks the way you imaged, maybe he looks completely different, but suddenly you're very aware that dr. kel exists

then you start to get a glimpse of how other people perceive him--croissants snuck on the drone for him by a friend who brags about her cooking, sushi snuck to you by another friend who calls him an asshole and says she misses him, both of whom are presumably his colleagues and both of whom seem worried for him. the smiling plushie of him the arirals gift if he gets on their good side, their note calling him cute attached to it along with an ominius offer of help in bad times. kerfur calling him a dumbass if he makes them do the reports twice, but also leaning down to his eye level to happily get pets

he's endearing in an odd sort of way, and people in-universe care about him. you start to care about him, which makes it all the more troubling when he makes pained sounds when he falls from too high, or starts coughing out of the blue. makes you wince when he falls off the radio tower or gets launched from the atv. makes it downright horrifying when he's caught by a wisp and torn apart limb by limb while you as the player can do nothing but watch

you find yourself wanting him to succeed, to be safe, to get out of the situation he's found himself in. or at least, i do. there isn't a ton to go on aside from some environmental storytelling and a breadcrumb trail of personality tidbits, but I personally find that trail to lead to an interesting and compelling character with enough wiggle room for further interpretation. i'm very excited to see what else we learn in future updates

[lepusrufus]

You know the brainrot is serious when I draw an art nouveau piece for it

[lorebird]

In which Ford struggles so badly to relate to other people that he wonders if he’s really human at all. The more isolated he becomes, the harder it is to reconcile with his own humanity.

[leahcee]

not to mention that the way kaos is filmed and like the outfits and setting very much give me romeo and juliet (1996) vibes in the best way possible