#characters by an anonymous person

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[canisalbus]

Oh, speaking of Vasco & Machete's voices, I always imagined machete as having either a very high and delicate voice or an uncharacteristically grave, low and regal voice, similar to how Jeremy Irons voices Scar in the original lion king. I personally like the grave voice idea much more, i find it at the same time a curve ball and somehow fitting of Machete

I think it's a little bit of both. Machete has a meticulously crafted work persona that is quite different from what he's like off the clock, you could say he has developed a distinct customer service voice. It's imperative that he comes across as professional, respectable and authoritative, so he has learned to use a lower register than he normally would, and keeps his tone cold, measured and impersonal. I'd say he sounds dignified and somewhat long-suffering, often with a tired, bitter creak. All in all he sustains this business facade quite well.

In private he's very soft-spoken and tends to have an underlying wounded, whimpery frailness to him. He practically never raises his voice but when sufficiently agitated, he becomes a fast and expressive talker and his pitch rises sharply. He doesn't sing (outside of conducting an occasional Mass, I suppose) but has a surprisingly light and airy laugh.

[robbyykeene]

I love johnny as a character but I think it's kinda crazy how this show straight up refuses to have him acknowledge that he bullied daniel and that he was wrong for it. the writers really did the "both were equally wrong" thing and that was so bizarre to me

For the longest time I was mind boggled by how a show that claims to be about Johnny Lawrence’s redemption could possibly fail to even truly acknowledge his original crime of bullying Daniel. But more and more it has become evident that when this show said “redeem” they didn’t mean from being a bully or an absent father, they meant from being a loser. Which is why this show will undoubtedly end for Johnny with a trophy in one hand and a trophy wife in the other, a brand new redemption baby, and his still neglected son and childhood victim standing happily by his side. Johnny will have won at life without having to ever meaningfully change or make amends for his wrongdoings, and it will all be hollow and meaningless because of it—a depressingly ironic parallel to his season 1 AVT victory.

[suzukiblu]

Please, cuddling, and TimKon?

. . . I am sorry but also I am NOT sorry for what I have done with this reply, but hey, why don't we all enjoy this one being the only prompt fill from this meme that got a read-more cut??

“Please,” Kon tries, trying not to look–he doesn’t know, weird and needy and like an embarrassment, or whatever. It feels like such a stupid thing to ask for. He knows Tim’s not really a hugger or a touchy-feely guy or whatever and that he likes having his own space and basically always hops out of bed right after sex to go write down all the shit his post-nut clarity made him think of, and the idea of, like, just staying still and actually cuddling or whatever is probably basically literal torture to him, assuming it’s ever even occurred to him at all, just . . . 

Just he’d kind of like to sometimes, maybe? Like–not regularly or whatever, he’s not trying to drive Tim nuts or cut into either his worktime or downtime here, just . . .

Just he’d like to do it sometimes, that’s all. 

Tim’s not the tactile type. Tim isn’t even the eye contact type, unless he’s lying to somebody or at work or just faking it for Robin-mode or whatever. Kon gets that. He’s been, like–careful about that. Not trying to take up too much space or ask for too much attention or mind when Tim doesn’t even look up at him when he– 

He’s been careful about it. 

But he is . . . well. The tactile type. Like . . . kind of, anyway. 

Like–it’s kinda unavoidable, honestly. 

“Oh,” Tim says, blinking at him in just enough bemusement to make him feel even more self-conscious about bringing this shit up to begin with, and Kon tries to keep his expression casual and noncommittal and–and just normal about this. Because he is totally normal about this. He is so normal about this. He is.

He’s also normal about the fact that when he asked Tim if he could talk to him about something, Tim didn’t even put down his tablet. Didn’t even put it to sleep, or actually even look up from it until . . . 

Kon’s normal about that. About all of this. 

(and he definitely never feels kind of weird or a little bit abandoned because Tim can’t EVER just bring his stupid laptop back to bed or at least work on whatever he’s thinking about IN the bedroom at the untouched desk he's got set up in there or even just, like . . . stick around and hang out on the couch with him, or anything like that. he definitely totally ENTIRELY doesn’t ever just feel like a casual fuckbuddy or an easy hookup or a gala-night accessory or just the most immediately convenient option and not actually–not actually any kind of a–not actually something that– 

he doesn’t. 

definitely.)

“Uh,” Kon says, and backpedals awkwardly, because clearly this conversation is not going the way he’d wanted it to and Tim just looks so surprised by it all, like–like it never even occurred to him or something, that maybe . . . that maybe Kon would want anything like that, or like he literally just hasn’t noticed how hard Kon’s been trying to be normal about it, or . . . 

It doesn’t feel very good, the idea he’s been trying so hard to respect Tim’s space and preferences and comfort levels and Tim hasn’t even noticed that he was doing anything at all. 

Especially because Tim usually notices just about everything. 

Maybe Tim’s just never thinking about it. Maybe he gets out of bed so quick because he’s spent the whole time in it thinking about other shit and just putting up with–just– 

“Kon,” Tim says, his voice going a little tight, and Kon just tries not to wince. He didn’t mention any of the complicated stuff he’s been trying not to feel, he just asked if Tim could–if Tim would– 

He didn’t even mention any of the complicated stuff, so it’s, like–not a great sign that Tim’s looking at him like that right now, like he’s said something really serious or upsetting or . . . 

He really shouldn’t have said anything, yeah. 

“Sorry,” he tries stiffly, glancing away and wrapping his hand around his own wrist and digging his fingers into the inside of it. It’s–tactile. Just . . . something tactile. “I know you don’t–sorry. Uh. Just forget it.” 

“Fuck,” Tim mutters for some reason, and Kon feels like such an idiot for saying anything at all, and a worse one for apparently doing it in a way that’s got Tim making that face at him. That face is Robin’s “my utility belt is empty, comms are fried, and the mission just went to shit” face. 

He really fucked this up. It was fine. Everything was fine, and now he’s wrecked it and Tim’s about to say it’s not even that serious, it’s not like it’s even–not like they’re even–and that Kon’s clearly gotten the wrong idea and they should just–just– 

“How long have you felt this way?” Tim asks very, very carefully, like the question’s something fragile, and Kon thinks from literally the first fucking time you left me alone in bed all night so you could go recalibrate some stupid useless specialty sensor that wasn’t even part of your primary gear, like, a WEEK into us sleeping together and says, “I dunno. It’s not–I told you. Forget it. It’s not a big deal.” 

He’s being weird about this. He’s being an asshole about this, actually, because being prepared for literally every single possible contingency ever is the Bats’ whole thing and he got into this knowing Tim wasn’t the touchy-feely type or all that expressive and emotive about–about his feelings, or whatever, and–and it’s not like he even–not like he– 

(he just wants a fucking HUG he didn't have to FUCK him for every now and then, or for Tim to at least exist in the same space as him for longer than the time it takes for the next email from Oracle to come in or next alert from Batman to go off or next self-assigned project to finish processing or–

but that’s not something Tim does, and Kon knew that going in, so–so it’s his own stupid fault if he feels SMALL sometimes, when . . . when there’s always something else, always another problem to solve or place to be or thing to think about, always . . . always something more important than just . . . staying, just for a little bit, and just BEING with–with him. just him. not the team, or either of their families, or . . .)

He knew all this going in, Kon reminds himself. He knew it. If he were this bad at being with literally anyone else, he’d just–he’d just– 

But something about it being Tim means he just . . . can’t. 

Tim’s jaw tightens, and he finally sets down his stupid tablet. 

Only now, though, Kon thinks bitterly, and digs his fingers a little deeper into the inside of his wrist. 

“Kon,” Tim says again, says too carefully again. Like something’s fragile, again. “I–” 

“I said forget it, for fuck’s sake!” Kon snaps too hotly, and maybe hates himself for both doing it and for the stricken look that doing it puts on Tim’s face, and also maybe cheats a bit by super-speeding straight out the balcony door into the night air and not taking his cell or his communicator with him. Or–definitely does, in fact. Definitely that’s cheating. He knows it is. 

He just really can’t stand to hear Tim tell him how he’s fucked up this time right now, though. He just–he tried so fucking hard not to fuck up this time. 

He really, really tried. 

He should’ve known it wouldn’t work, but . . . but he really did try.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Romantic in nature or not, I always just looked at that scene in MoA with the notion: Annabeth is convinced that Nico, a gay man, has a crush on her in this exact scene (or you know, a different scene in MoA, I don't remember), and since we know that Annabeth isn't the best on the emotional front, she read Luke's intentions incorrectly, and Percy did, as well, due to his jealousy of the guy.

(Now, I know that neither of these are the case, especially since I doubt Nico was thought to be gay until HoH, and this is around the time that Annabeth was starting to be characterized as Never Wrong About Anything Ever, but it's always been my go-to regarding the whole Luke-Annabeth debacle. What I mean to say is that I like your interpretation of the scenes, too)

Oh i actually believe Nico was fully intended to be gay starting around MOA at least (though I do believe Rick claiming he had figured that out about Nico earlier than that), because Rick was absolutely acknowledging queer topics in his writing at that time. Jason's arc particularly in the latter half of HoO is extremely bi-coded and there's just straight up a canonical polyamorous relationship in Serpent's Shadow, which came out several months before HoH.

Which does make Annabeth's line about that in MOA funnier, especially considering by that point Nico has held maybe one full conversation with her in the entire franchise thus far, maybe two or three if you wanna push it. I cannot emphasize enough how little they had spoken to each other - and tbh, continued to not speak to each other. Just in general. Like the most notable interactions the two of them have prior to the high-five scene in BoO are literally both in BoTL and it's one line and then one off-screen scene of Nico breaking up a fight between Rachel and Annabeth (where they were fighting over Percy) entirely for the purposes of going to save Percy. They barely interact in HoO. Nico and Annabeth have a chronic case of their plot lines being in different locations because only one of them is allowed to be active at a time due to their narrative roles. Annabeth is kidnapped for most of the TTC Nico scenes and Nico is at camp when they get to Annabeth, and then in TLO Nico's busy with all the Underworld stuff and flirting with Percy so he never interacts with Annabeth. Then Nico is off at Camp Jupiter when Annabeth's at CHB and then busy being kidnapped for the first stretch of the Argo II mission and only shows up when Annabeth is busy on her Arachne quest. And then Annabeth FALLS INTO TARTARUS when Nico gets there (and proceeds to pine at Percy) and then IMMEDIATELY after Annabeth gets out of Tartarus, Nico skips away with Reyna and Coach to drag the Athena Parthenos to camp. And then FINALLY they interact and it's not even Nico speaking directly to Annabeth really, just high-fiving her after insulting Percy to his face. He literally only says one word directly to her.

Like. I cannot overemphasize the absolute comical degree to which these two avoid interacting. They're like magnets repelling each other. And yet Annabeth is like "I think he has a crush on me - he spoke to me once, allegedly." Like ah yes, sure, HoO. Next you're gonna tell me you retconned them into having a FOURTH conversation! Don't get too wild!

[ckret2]

So it'd be bad to call Bill by the pronouns he'd go by if English wouldn't have been restrictive and society sexist because it'd be an excuse to not call a canonical he/him character by his canonical pronouns and disrespectful to real transmasc people who other people refuse to use he/him for them on principle?

(sorry for repeating everything you said I just wanted to make sure I got it)

on an even more fundamental level than that, it'd be bad to call Bill pronouns other than he/him because I asked you not to and it would annoy me.

Bill is a fictional character and thus his opinions don't matter. I'm a real person and my opinions do matter. It bugs me when I call a character I'm writing "he" and "his" and "him" thousands of times and other people call the character "they" because on some subconscious level they're uncomfortable he/himming a dude with a cooch.

The fact that this reflects the way some people treat irl trans men is a contributing factor to why it annoys me; but like, I'm writing a fanfic about a Disney cartoon, I'm not saying "cut it out" as an act of queer activism that I think will dismantle transandrophobia. That sure would be cool, but is about as likely as achieving world peace by making a really clever bumper sticker. I'm saying "cut it out" because I'm irritated when I get asks doing that.

[arttsuka]

augustus gets transferred to the new york museum

augustus: (wearing a shirt saying "New York Or Bust!") "get it? because i'm a bust?"

jed and octavius: *groans*

Jed is rubbing off on him

[rwby-confess]

Confession #276

[neunhofferart]

Howdy, Heidi! You said that some fans picked up things that were done on accident… Were there more scenes like that? Also, were there scenes that you guys made on purpose but fans didn’t pick up / were aware of them? In shipping terms (hihi) and in general terms. Thanks!

I think in every type of media you will inevitably see versions of 'authorial' intent vs audience interpretation that overlap and differ from each other in many ways. (Authorial intent in quotes because in collaborative mediums like film and animation every single person on the pipeline who touches the work probably has a slightly different personal interpretation they're contributing to the final work, even under someone like a showrunner or a director).

Humans are smart and it's in our nature to look for connections and find explainations to questions, so most of the time if someone is putting something down, someone is going to pick it up, so to speak, and a lot of things ARE on purpose.

But this same phenomenon can also lead to us seeing connections in places that even the 'authors' might not have originally thought of while creating the work, and I think that can be pretty neat actually! I don't necessarily think reading alternate interpretations of works is wrong-- it can be very healthy to explore multiple reads of a narrative or a character/character dynamic. On Chaos Theory there were definitely times when we were like 'fans are probably gonna ship this even if it's not the text' haha. Sometimes fans latch onto headcanons you really have no control over. Sometimes things were animated slightly differently from how they were conceived (which is also a natural part of things).

But yes, sometimes I have seen a few other things that were interpreted in slightly different ways from how they were directed or written verbally, but I'm personally of the opinion that it's more fun to leave some things visual and open to a little interpretation rather than beating the words over the audience's head and having the characters constantly announcing 'I'm feeling this because of this!' And going 'this is the only way to interpret the show and the characters and if you don't you're wrong!'

It's usually not a huge deal. I think even as we were working sometimes I'd make connections to myself that weren't necessarily spelled out to us and go 'oh, this is a throughline for this character actually!'

Like for example- if I remember correctly, the original direction behind how Kenji reacted to Ben's apparent death was that it was supposed to the first time he'd ever seen someone he really KNEW seemingly die right front of him, and being unable to do anything about it deeply affected him. Ben is a very important turning point in his character development regardless of which way you read it.

And I think this is actually something that just continued to stack onto his character throughout both shows whenever any of his friends lives are seriously in danger. In Camp when he's still unable to do anything but comfort Sammy while she's poisoned, to deciding it's too dangerous not to trade Wu's laptop for Brooklynn, to eventually throwing himself between the spinosaurus his dad is about to kill Darius with and choosing his friends over his own father and being willing to die with/for them... and then in Chaos Theory it kind of reboots all over again with Brooklynn dying and then his dad dying right in front of him, and his complex of not wanting to be useless and trying to do whatever he can at the expense of even himself to keep the loved ones he has left safe is kicked into overdrive.

I think there are a lot of things like that where the intent is not always verbally spelled out, but the more important thing is that it's still (hopefully) making you feel something.

[bthump]

Hi! I've been wanting to know for a long time, which symbolisms used in Griffith are the most interesting to you and, in your opinion, the deepest? What do you think about this?

Idk about deepest, I feel like that's not something I can make a good judgement call on lol. But my favourite piece of symbolism related to Griffith is the toy soldier:

It's a little on the nose but it's such a good and succinct way of showing how Griffith himself becomes a symbol to his followers, reduced to an idealized figure that represents glory and success and their dreams, rather than a flawed person in his own right.

Though I also really love the helmet and armour:

Essentially, imo, symbolizing the negative coping mechanism - the dream - Griffith clings to that causes him to shut people out and keep himself distanced and isolated. It's very fitting that the armour is eventually incorporated into his body as Femto, after he definitively rejects his relationships in favour of his dream.

I have more written on both of these things if you're interested.

This is my tag for posts about how Griffith is viewed as an image rather than a person.

This is a post that delves into more of that toy/representation imagery.

It's harder to find a good encapsulation of the helmet thing, but here's a post that contextualizes it in a quick analysis of chapter one.

And of course the gigantic Griffith essay gets into it thoroughly, mostly in part 4 iirc.

Thanks for the ask!

[mythos321]

Fatespeaker they can never make me hate you

@godinvent once again thanks for quickly making this-

[liesmyth]

would you be able to give examples/explain more about how race only impacts gideon in the tlt-universe? not being facetious or condescending, genuinely asking. thank you!

Hi anon! If you mean my tags to this post, I wrote

#earth conception of race doesn't impact any character in the series except the canonically brown main antagonist

By which I mean my Worstie and main antagonist of the series, John Gaius (PhD).

I don’t think TLT as a series engages with race in any especially meaningful ways. It’s set in a post-Earth society with entirely different social norms, and there’s no concept of race and ethnicity within the population of the Nine Houses. Physical descriptions of the characters are scarce to say the least, and they rarely spell out the kind of features that suggest specific racial connotations, because the POV characters don’t seem to think it’s something worth remarking upon. iirc, it takes until halfway through HtN for the narrative to confirm that Harrow has brown skin.

[See also Tamsyn’s GtN characters description post. It quotes passages from the book, and you can see how minimal the descriptions are, and she repeats several times that her characters’ appearances are up to the readers’ interpretations. It just doesn’t seem to be a big concern of hers]

Then there’s John, who grew up in twenty-first-century New Zealand and IS explicitly Māori in a way that absolutely impacted his character arc. It's not A major theme of his Nona chapters, but it’s there if you read between the lines. The boarding school he went to, which IRL had a high percentage of low-income Māori students on scholarship. The depth of his climate anxiety, his uncompromising “Nobody left behind” stance before the cryo project was halted, and his fervent hatred of ‘the trillionaires’ afterwards... these are all informed to some extent by his background as an indigenous man imo, and so was the global reaction to his developing powers. The “We were going to put you fellas in jail, weren’t we?” the way his initial attempts at publications are all flat-out ignored by the scientific community and dismissed as culty gimmicky faith healing until he leans into it.

John being Māori is just one of the many pieces of his backstory, and far from the most impactful to what eventually went down, but my point remains that he is the ONLY character in TLT whose racial background 1) affects his story arc and 2) is relatable to the audience. Everyone else is ten thousand years removed from Earth, and I’m just not very interested in using racial identifiers when exploring these characters and their dynamics, because the characters themselves don’t care and neither does the narrative.

[canisalbus]

Vasco is now voiced by Christian Bale in my mind. Cuz of Howl.

I've never watched any of the Ghibli films with their English dubs, so I went to take a quick look and got such a massive whiplash I thought I was going to pass out on the spot. I like Christian Bale but I don't know how to feel about his voice coming out of Howl's mouth, he sounds like a rugged, perpetually annoyed American action star :'>

I personally tend to think Vasco would sound like the singer Hozier. Not necessarily his singing voice but how he comes across in interviews. Warm, smooth, earthy and friendly.

[cripplecharacters]

Does a magic user generating themself a magic arm replacement, indistinguishable from a real arm to non magic users, fall under the robot arm ruling in?

Some two handed tasks could actually be easier just to do with magic, since this character is very skilled in magic, including fine motor skill style manipulation of objects, including but not limited to things like typing on a physical keyboard.

Full arm gone, lower and upper. The conjured arm is a constant drain in the mana/energy of the caster. Obvs the mana cost per minute and negative effect of it would differ per person, but the character in question is not bothered by it unless using large amounts of magic for other things. If they are under serious strain they would drop the spell and the arm would disappear immediately. The character generates this arm bc they want to, not bc of anyone else.

Hello,

Yes, that is a robot arm fix. Also, you might want to consider exactly how much control something as complicated as an arm would take. The character would need to consciously control every tiny micro adjustment of their shoulder, upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, the palm, the knuckles, and every single finger and every single joint. The amount of nerves and muscles and bones in the human arm that are required to make it work, perfectly replicating the function, especially for tiny actions like typing on a keyboard, would be nigh impossible if you had to manually activate your muscles and nerves to move your fingers and wrists just so. That doesn't just take power, it takes immense control and extreme amounts of concentration. Would it even be possible to do something that complicated, creating an entire arm to type on a computer, while also thinking about what you're typing?

Sure, it could be possible, but it would be a monumental amount of work and there is literally no reason for it when they could easier do things like summoning spells or telekinesis spells to do what they want to do. Those wouldn't take the amount of concentration the creation and perfect use of a magical arm would.

If your character is powerful enough to somehow perfectly replicate something as complicated as an arm, they're powerful enough to use magic to create accessibility and accessibility is going to be easier for them and for you as the writer. Plus, magic accessibility isn't a magic fix. Why not try for magic accessibility instead?

Mod Aaron

[daynascullys]

your favourite fictional character and why you love them

I have soooo many characters I'd like to talk about, but I think I need to take a moment for my beloved Kate Beckett.

She is tough, she is a badass, she is good at her job. She is serious and driven and no-nonsense. Except, EXCEPT... she is also full of nonsense! Completely unserious! The softest, most loving, empathetic cinnamon roll you ever did meet! She is deeply flawed, unable to stay as objective as she thinks she can, determined, and brave. She learns to open herself up, learns to be vulnerable, learns to honor the part of her she's kept hidden away for so long. She's silly and mischievous and playful and messy. She is genuine and honest. She is guarded and careful but finds herself breaking open in spite of it all. She is skeptical and hopeful. She is hurting and grieving but still trying to live. She is imperfect and human, she is trying her best, she is failing and she is succeeding and she is figuring it out. She is all this and more and that is everything to me.

[kirkwallguy]

as much as i want to point and laugh at veilguard, i ultimately put the blame on dai. all my woes started right there in that game 😔 solas and the big bad gods, on-the-nose writing, digestible archetypes, and forcing stakes (yay, hello weekes!) and no actual 'consequences'. don't get me started on the inquisitor, the flattest pc ever, saved only by how creative the fans got. and that desperation to answer everything the origins of the universe the suns and stars and this and that AND pin a name and face to them... all started in dai. it was litchrally going to be called dreadwolf, the dna was going to get carried over one way or another.

i can accept veilguard as this really awkward neglected child but at the end of the day, dai to me is the parent here.

Oh i totally agree - it actually makes it kind of frustrating to engage with a lot of criticism of dav because so much of it now seems to be about how solas was fucked over when MY main criticism is that solas should never have been a character at all and he actively made the series worse lol.

dai and dav are really similar in their strengths and weaknesses, dav just kind of intensifies both. i think blaming fan reception for the writers' choices is kind of stupid so i won't do that (i HATE posts that say "ummm they watered down the politics because fans argued about them" like arguing about fantasy politics isn't a sign you've written something believable and engaging lol) but i do think that being praised for dai's mediocrity probably pushed them to do more of the same. particularly when it comes to focusing on solas/solavellan.

there are some things that are obviously way worse. dai's dialogue only makes me roll my eyes like 50% of the time while dav had me frequently wondering whether ai was involved, but like... yeah. it's not just that dav was suddenly bad. i don't read a lot of the extra material, but i also noticed pacing issues in the first story of tevinter nights that we see mirrored REALLY strongly in dai and dav: interesting setup that just starts to fall apart and meander for ages until there's a big climax and it just suddenly ends lol.