#from what i can remember the main female protagonist is described as being dark skin similar to her brother

[sukibenders]

This Children of Blood and Bone casting is not it. Amandla....bestie, listen----

[walks-the-ages]

Hi, I saw your post about Marinette's whitewashing and I totally agree the show whitewashed her and have no reason to do so. But I did want to point out that there are other ways to describe a person's physical features without referring them as exotic. I can tell you were trying to use it loosely, but still the usage of the word when referring to people can be very dehumanizing.

Thank you, if you have some suggestions for other words to use, feel free to send me another abon and I can edit them in to the post, I mainly used "exotic" because that's how the Miraculous Writers view it with their character designs: that only the girls that are antagonists have ethnic features even when they're fully white (Chloe), while Marienette, the main protagonist, has been completely white washed, taking her Chinese heritage completely out of her design, changing her hair from black to blue and her eyes from dark to unnatural bright blue, even though literally none of her relatives have blue eyes.

Kagami is allowed to have brown eyes .... But she's also an obstacle for the main endgame ship, and about half the fandom hates her guts purely for that reason.

Lila, also known as Chloe 2.0, is given darker skin than any of the non-Black characters, and again, the "main female antagonist" (when the writers aren't forgetting her entire existence,) looks more mixed race than our mixed race protagonist, purely because the ML Writers view non-white features as signs of villainy, when they're not going out of their way to use gross stereotypes as the basis of their character design for brownie points, such as Jess from the New York special, or Fei in the Shanghai special; Jess has received plenty of criticism on her offensive stereotyped design from plenty of Native ml fans, so I'll leave that up to them, and I think my post about Fei got eaten, but she's literally the stereotype of the "Magical Pickpocket Who Preys On Helpless Tourists" except we're supposed to like her "So It's Okay and Not Racist We Swear". But, at least her design showed that Miraculous Ladybug is completely capable of giving their Asian female characters actual black hair and natural eye colors... They just refuse to.

Ml could very well have a soft reboot with a season premiere just changing Marinette's hair from blue to black, and just literally not mention it -- her hair is canonically black, but they made it blue to "show" her asian heritage because they already erased her original concept design that actually showed she was only half white, instead of the show itself only remembering that little fact when it's relevant to an Adrien plot and telling us that.

The absolutely disgusting way they have Marienette behave in the Shanghai special should be evidence enough of how they really view non-white and mixed race people; they have Marinette completely out of character and manipulating her parents into spending their life savings on sending her to china on her own so she can follow Adrien, which is just completely racist and probably their attempt to cover their own asses because once the synopsis for the ML Shanghai special leaked they were already being bombarded with the correct criticism of how racist and gross this depiction of a mixed race character is, but now, because they have Marinette being the one to grossly manipulate her parents into it, people will see it as a bashable character flaw instead of a disgusting writing choice, because literally the entire Shanghai special exists just to make Adrien look good and Marinette look bad, and poor attempt to launch a spinoff with Fei.

I used "exotic" the way I did in that post not because I am trying to dehumanize people, but because that's exactly what the creators themselves view it as. I will gladly edit that point into the post itself, and if you have suggestions of better wording, feel free to send another non.

[girlbossfrankshepard]

Decent list of musicals with canon LGBT rep that’s not only cis white gay boys:

Some obvious ones out of the way that people here are well-acquainted with:

Falsettos (happy lesbian couple supporting characters Dr. Charlotte and Cordelia, as well as heavy focus on Judaism)

Rent (supporting cast includes Collins, a gay Black man and anarchist, Angel, his GNC Latinx partner, Joanne, a Black lesbian lawyer, and Maureen, her performing artist partner who is implied to be bi or a lesbian depending on the version of the show)

Fun Home (protagonist is butch lesbian Alison Bechdel, plot centers on her complicated relationship with her closeted gay dad, and Alison’s college girlfriend, Joan, is very commonly played by women of color)

Some more I’d recommend or at least would like to discuss:

If/Then (plot focuses on two different timelines created by one choice the protagonist makes at the start of the show. There’s Lucas, who is an openly bisexual housing activist and has male and female love interests respectively in the different timelines, David, his sweet boyfriend who is usually Asian-American, Kate, a Black lesbian kindergarten teacher, and Anne, whose relationship with Kate works out in one of the timelines and there’s a really touching song about it. Also they’re played by Anthony Rapp, Jason Tam, LaChanze, and Jenn Colella respectively in the original cast, so how’s that for all-stars?)

The Color Purple (the protagonist is Celie, a dark-skinned Black lesbian living in the 1930s who faces intracommunity misogyny and abuse and comes out of it surrounded by the love of many women in her life, including her bisexual lover, Shug Avery, and is also able to see herself as having inherent value and beauty.)

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (the protagonist is Hedwig, described by the writer as “a gender of one”, who performs in a rock band and tells the audience the story of how she got bottom surgery and left East Berlin to find her soulmate. The show culminates in her accepting that she is a complete person in and of herself.)

Kinky Boots (The co-lead, Lola/Simon, is a Black drag queen who helps in a project to design high-heeled boots strong enough for AMAB people to wear. She also has an arc of reconciling with her father who had previously turned his back on her. I’m not crazy about the way the book is written and I remember there being some transphobic jokes both made at the expense of Lola and by Lola herself, but Cyndi Lauper did write some pretty good bops, so make of it what you will.)

A Chorus Line (one of the dancers, a young gay Puerto Rican man named Paul, gives a major emotional monologue in the latter part of the show about his coming of age.)

Kiss of the Spider Woman (the protagonists are two men, Luis and Valentin, who become lovers in an Argentinian prison. I’ve only listened to the cast recording once and am not all too familiar with it, but I get the impression it’s a classic and Chita Rivera was in it.)

First Lady Suite (one of four of the plots in this show focuses on the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt and her reporter, Lorena Hickok.)

Bring It On (one of the supporting characters, La Cienega, is an explicitly trans Afro-Latina girl and everyone treats her with respect.)

Some to be on the lookout for:

The Prom (you know people have been talking about this one! It’s about a gaggle of Broadway performers, wanting to be relevant again, hear about a couple of lesbian teenagers, Alyssa and Emma, who got banned from their school prom in Indiana and go out to fight for them. Very sweet fun show, got all the MLM/WLW solidarity you could want. A live recording of the songs can be found on YouTube.)

Head Over Heels (jukebox musical using music by The Go-Gos set in a fairytale world, starring Peppermint, a Black trans performer who competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race and will be officially the the first trans performer to be in an original Broadway cast. Also it's got an interracial lesbian romance, Pamela and Mopsa, and apparently there's also a non-binary character.)

The Civility of Albert Cashier (the protagonist is Albert Cashier, a young trans man who fought in the Civil War and fell in love with one of his fellow soldiers. The young version of him in the show is played by a transmasc actor. There’s no official cast recording yet, but there are demos of the songs up on their website.)

Invisible Thread (Griffin Matthews wrote the show with his real life partner, Matt Gould, as a fictionalized account of his own experience doing volunteer work in Uganda and navigating the unique way he exists there as a gay African-American man and befriending the people there. It’s fallen off the radar for a while now and there aren’t any available recordings of all the songs, but the cast has done a lot of great talks that you can watch on YouTube, some of them from when the show was still going by the title “Witness Uganda”.)

Update (3/11/19):

Interstate (the show has a majority Asian-American cast and creative team and the leads are Dash, a trans man who performs spoken word, and his best friend Adrian, a lesbian songwriter. They are in a band together and the show is about them going on tour and connecting with with their fans. It has performed at the New York Musical Festival at The Acorn Theatre.)

The View UpStairs (this show is based on the real life events of the 1973 arson attack at the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans. The protagonist is our framing device, a young gay Black fashion designer from the current day named Wes who’s having a rough time with his anxiety and finds himself transported to the UpStairs Lounge, connecting with his community’s history. The cast album is available on Amazon and iTunes.)

Lizzie (based off the 1892 murders of Abby and Andrew Borden, and the trial of Lizzie Borden, running off of the theory that Lizzie and her neighbor, Alice, were in love. You can find it on Amazon, Spotify, and YouTube. There’s a lot of loud noises- it’s a rock musical)

Volleygirls (it’s about what you’d think it would be about, high school girls playing volleyball. There is a Latina lesbian named Marisol who sings an absolutely adorable song about liking girls, which you’ve probably heard a few different people cover like Adrienne Warren and Lilli Cooper. My favorite is Monica Raymund, who I think is the original actress. As far as I can tell, the show has never been staged or recorded for an album, but you can watch them perform all the songs at 54 Below on YouTube.)

Across The Universe (pretty well-known jukebox musical of The Beatles directed by Julie Taymor set in the cultural landscape of America and Britain during the Vietnam war. Prudence is a Vietnamese-American lesbian who is part of the main group of friends. I do wish she had more story, but she sings an absolutely beautiful and tender version of I Wanna Hold Your Hand.)

[doormouseetcappendix]

“This amazing renaissance we’re seeing right now of black speculative fiction and literature is really starting to bleed over—no pun intended—into film and television. I mean, I can list so many writers who have active TV development right now. Nnendi Okorafor has Who Fears Death at HBO. N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season at TNT. Victor LaValle with The Ballad of Black Tom at AMC. Clearly this is the moment, right?

Between Get Out and Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time coming out, with Ava [DuVernay] directing a multiracial cast… there’s just never been a time like this. For artists and consumers of black, speculative art.”

-Tananarive Due

The Fifth Season

“The Fifth Season is described as an epic drama set in a world where civilization-destroying earthquakes occur with deadly regularity. A small minority of inhabitants has the ability to quiet these earthquakes, but they also can cause them. The series follows three women, each of whom possesses these special, Earth-controlling abilities: Damaya, a young girl training to serve the Empire; Syenite, an ambitious young woman ordered to breed with her bitter and frighteningly powerful mentor; and Essun, a mother searching for the husband who murdered her young son and kidnapped her daughter mere hours after a Season tore a fiery rift across the land.”

The fifth season is a trilogy of books about geo-mancers trying to survive on a volatile super-continent. Like Avatar “The Last Air Bender” if every few years the world went through a “Geo-Storm”.

The Ballad Of Black Tom

“People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn’t there.

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.

A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?”

The Ballad Of Black Tom is a post-modern re-working of Hp Lovecraft’s “The Horror At Redhook” with a black POV, turning an eye toward HP’s not so subtle racism. A horror story at heart set in the jazz age, with a hard boiled main character plunging head first into a world of elder gods and white supremacy. 

Who Fears Death

“Who Fears Death, published in 2010 by DAW, an imprint of Penguin Books, is set in a fictionalized post-apocalyptic future version of Sudan, where the light-skinned Nuru oppress the dark-skinned Okeke. The protagonist, Onyesonwu (Igbo for “who fears death”), is an Ewu, the child of an Okeke woman raped by a Nuru man. On reaching maturity, she goes on a quest to defeat her sorcerous father Daib using her magical powers.”

Afro-futurism with George R. R. Martin as an exec producer could go in so many ways especially if they include material from pre-quel “The Book Of Phoenix”(X-Men level battles, giant trees, winged wrestlers)  but at the very least you can expect fantasy elements like shape-shifting, telepathy, and mystical creatures, but also graphic realism of genocide, female circumcision, and the lingering effects of sexual violence on individuals and communities. I remember reading Okorafor saying she had cut down huge amounts of the book, at the behest of her editors, so there could be way more to this first story as well. Of all the projects HBO has the most money to throw around, so this has the best chances of being worthy of its source. 

[latveriansnailmail]

OC meme answers

Filling out the previous post.

1. Your first OC ever? The earliest character I remember making was an armored flamethrowing bad guy named Cinder. I made him to be an antagonist for my brother's OC. Cinder is an industrial saboteur in his current incarnation. 2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs? I am probably most fond of Nick Chapel, Psychic Detective. 3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else? Several. A good handful of my characters were PCs in tabletop games I ran. 4. A character you rarely talk about? The less developed they are, the less I talk about them. 5. If you could make only one of your OCs popular/known, who would it be? I have several favorites but I think the world would get the most milage out of Man Man. He always manages to be in the wrong despite his best intentions. 6. Two OCs of yours that look alike despite not being related? There are trends. Open shirts. Facial hair. Tattoos. Sunglasses. No capes. 7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories? I'm building fuel for several stand alone books set in a common universe. 8. Do you RP as any of your OCs? If you do, introduce one of your RP OCs here! Nick Chapel and Swingin' Johnny Go both began as Old World of Darkness characters. Nick was my Gangrel and Johnny was an Ecstatic mage. 9. Would you ever be willing to give any of your OCs to someone else? I would give back what I have borrowed. I might lend an OC if said OC was already well established and characterized. 10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design? What, visually? Probably Upside Downe is the most complicated because he's more of a celebrity (of the modern fashion) than a superhero. As such his look varies from day to day but is always flamboyant. In his early conception I took some inspiration from Dennis Rodman. Nowadays he's closer to Red Foo. 11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”? Maybe el Constrictador. 12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot I tend to be drawn to any character who is a fanatic or a literal angel, preferably both at the same time. 13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs? Lady Angst is true to her name. 14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory I try to stay away from that trope since it's done into the ground in the superhero genre (see women in refrigerators.) That said, I suppose Maxine Force has seen some tragedy of late; her husband died suddenly and painfully, Maxine tried to transfer his consciousness into an AI, and then said AI was overwritten and appropriated by enemy agents, resulting in a twisted android mockery of a good man. 15. Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people? AD INFINITUM 16. Which one of your OCs would be the best at biology (school subject)? Definitely Professor Pinnacle though Man Man is a close second. 17. Any OC OTPs? Lady Angst/Swingin' Johny Go, as well as Zapatta the Mystic/Maid Malice 18. Any OC crackships? Idano, I guess Nick and Melanie Plutarch. That's going nowhere. 19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why) I'm still working on this character but Quanta is based on a teacher I respect. 20. Do any of your OCs sing? If they sing, care to share more details (headcanon voice, what kind of songs they like etc)? The Fat Lady is a coloratura and an amazing improvisational singer, though she tends to shatter all glass in the vicinity. Johnny is the front man of a swing band and can also use his sonic powers to manifest music but he says it's just not the same as a live performance. 21. Your most artistic OC Again, Johnny. In addition to singing and playing, he crafts string instruments semi-professionally. 22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how? I have to be very deliberate in my depiction of Solomon King. He's a guy wearing a flag so I have to be clear with his characterization and his ideals, or else people would just project their personal politics on him. 23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like? Thorn was originally just some generic beefy white dude in his 20s with plant powers. The current Doctor Thorn is 50 or older, a genius botonist, black, an amputee, and very cynical owing to the public's past reception of his race. Hell, public's not crazy about him right now. 24. If you could meet one OC of yours, who would it be and why? I would meet the Stregga Sisters so I could ask what their deal is. I need to develop them. 25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?) As a younger man, that would most closely be Johnny but now I'm turning 39 and I identify more with Nick. We both prefer classic movies. 26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will? I was confronted with how 7 out of 7 of my most significant American figures were all male so I gender-swapped Maxwell Force into Maxine. S/he's more interesting now. I have plenty of female characters (close to half) and a loooot of female second bananas but the lack of female leadership is still something I'm struggling with. 27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song? Actually, the first plot scenario and its main perpetrators came to me in a dream, complete with a rap song. So in particular Edifice Wrex is the rapper of my dreams. 28. Your most dangerous OC? DEFINITELY the Chokester. Imagine the Joker crossed with Venom and classically trained in traditional European buffoonery. 29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going? Several, really. Nick, Zapatta... Lady Angst would live cast it. 30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection? La Nina maybe. Of course life on the road would mean nowhere to keep it... 31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really) Let me point out that I myself have been involved with goth culture since about 1995. That said, Lady Angst is heavily involved with social media and reblogs all the most ridiculously stereotypical goth stuff with plenty of vaguebooking thrown in as she bemoans her personal situation and throws shade at people in the community. She has the worst kept secret identity in the whole long underwear game. 32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why? Spiderbite Emma is a pragmatic survivor. Plus she can turn people into wolves so she's got that going for her. 33. Your shyest OC? I've gathered many brazen personalities, them being superheroes and all. That said, probably Catfight. Her anthro-feline body is a constant target for unwanted attention. 34. Do you have any twin characters? Not at this time. 35. Any sibling characters? Reveal: Angst and Emma are sisters! Don't tell no one. Be cool. I'm still cooking the Force family but there's the young adult Gail Force and the tween Maxwell (found a new use for that name.) 36. Do you have OC pairs where the other part belongs to someone else (siblings, lovers, friends etc)? Nope. 37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human Like all of them. I just got finished fleshing out a OC who's a sasquatch, Professor "Squatcho" Henderson. 38. Which one of your OCs would be the best dancer? For all her flaws, sucking at dancing is not among Lady Angst's failings. Zapatta is two thousand years old and lascivious so he can probably cut a rug. For that matter and for similar reasons Santacles would know every winter folk dance there is. 39. Introduce any character you want I have a fondness for the Keeper, a combo speedster/tank. She’s Britain’s most popular hero, goalkeeper themed, and seven and a half feet tall. She was born out of some RPG build experiments, the idea being that her low end cosmic awareness tells her what’s happening, her speed helps her intervene, and then her thick skin absorbs the hit. 40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share In my early 20s I used to hang out at night with friends of mine in the local all night diner, drinking unlimited coffee, playing games, eating the breakfast buffet, etc. We were all either just out of college or just out of high school and we were all commiserating our bleak futures. I would sketch and color a character pic every night. Most of those characters are scrapped now but a few (like Sonofagun) have made the cut. The pictures got moldy in storage, sad to say. 41. Has anyone drawn fanart of your OCs? If yes, maybe show a picture or two here (remember sources & permissions!) See above. 42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods? Many of them ARE Greek gods. My Mary Sue, Mail-man would be most genuinely interested. 43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favour some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confess See above, #6. 44. Something you like about your OCs in general They are diverse and few have anything stereotypical about them. They are all their own people. 45. A character you no longer use? NEVER ASK ME ABOUT STEVE 46. Has anyone ever told you that you treat your OCs badly? Nah. I'm so wary of fridging characters that I don't heap much abuse on them. Plus, there's a revolving door on death. 47. Has anyone ever (friendly) claimed any of your OCs as their child? As I've said, some are on permanent loan from their player parents. 48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure Nah. Maybe Catfight. She's trying to get into Man Man's crew and it's going to be disastrous. 49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes Probably Magnum Opus. 50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you want Top Rocker of Earth has a passing similarity to Lobo in that both are cosmic bikers and general nasty asskickers but in truth Top draws most from Terrax the Tamer. If you want, you can tag your ask answers with #yetanotherOCmeme so I can check them out too `v´9

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #370

Top Ten Videogame Protagonists

Games, eh? Don’t you just love ‘em? I mean, the good ones at least. Or sometimes even not just the good ones. Sometimes ones that are a bit pants but somehow get under your skin. Or, if not exactly pants, then just kind of “OK”, sort-of-a-little-bit-mediocre, but they scratch an itch that needs scratching, especially if they’re mobile games and you’re after something relatively untaxing but time-wastey.

Sorry, where was I?

Anyway, a funny thing about games is the concept of the protagonist. Games – even narrative games – are different from other forms of art and media because of the issue of control. You are supposed to be the protagonist. And in narrative games – or games that can roughly be described as following a narrative, which is to say, not sports games – designers can either present a protagonist who is themselves a fully-formed character, or they can offer a nonentity, a blank slate upon which you can draw your own personality. Are you Mario or is Mario you? It’s Duke Nukem versus Gordon Freeman. A character versus an avatar.

So here we are then. My favourite video game protagonists. The main characters; the ones you play. Some of these I think are cool characters in their own right; some of them are, like I implied above, silicon avatars, canvases, a means for you to interact with the world. And that’s alright; that’s what they’re there for. But they do it so well, in such a way as to help elucidate greater meanings for the game in question. I always felt – to digress a little around the same topic – that in the original Knights of the Old Republic, I created a character out of whole cloth; they were me, it was as if I were playing through the events of the game. They were a digital representation of my psyche. But in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, because the demands of the plot necessitated my character to jump through certain hoops, I began playing as that character; assuming a role, so to speak. Rather than “what if I were a Jedi,” I began playing as “what if I were this Jedi; what would I want this Jedi to do?” I found this very rewarding, even if the second game is somewhat inferior to the first.

But I can’t quite remember why I felt those things, which makes me want to play both games again.

Where was I? Oh yeah – top ten game protagonists. Press A to start.

Guybrush Threepwood (The Secret of Monkey Island, 1990): a perfect example of playing a character. Guybrush is fully-formed and all you do is point him at stuff. Witty, silly, naïve, heroic; you don’t shape his character, and with only one real path through the games, all you do is pick which one-liner he’ll deliver next.

Lara Croft (Tomb Raider, 1996): although mostly a blank slate, the iconography of Lara – shorts, vest, combat boots, two huge guns – helped reinforce the character you were playing; tough, no-nonsense, fully capable, physically adept, a female Indiana Jones.

Kyle Katarn (Star Wars: Dark Forces, 1995): almost machine-tooled to be the perfect Star Wars fan-service character – Han Solo but a Jedi! – Katarn is admirably sarky through his entire life, a voice of cynicism even when in full-on hero mode. This is supported in cut-scenes, whilst in-game you get to indulge in wish-fulfilment, especially in sequel Jedi Knight, the first game to really let you wield a lightsaber. The element of choice was revolutionary in those days, allowing you to embrace the Light Side or the Dark, with requisite powers and different endings, and Katarn reflected your player choice perfectly.

Manuel Calavera (Grim Fandango, 1998): like Guybrush, Calavera is a complete character; indeed, he’s more realistic and nuanced than Guybrush, despite being a skeleton with a clunky polygonal head. Beautifully brought to life by Tony Plana (Ugly Betty’s dad!), Manny is funny, earnest, and quietly heroic, and you feel for him sufficiently to want him to complete his quest even when trying to negotiate the weird rotational control system and walk across multiple pre-rendered backgrounds to get to the next objective.

Joanna Dark (Perfect Dark, 2000): like Lara Croft, Joanna Dark is mostly character through iconography: a futuristic catsuit, nifty-looking fun, and funky sci-fi spy gadgets. But by speaking in cut-scenes we get more of her identity, even though it’s still a thin characterisation; she’s basically Lady James Bond but in the future. However, being Lady James Bond but in the future is a fantastic hook, and a nice turn in cut-glass upper-class deadpan goes a long way.

Luigi (Mario Bros., 1983): Mario and Luigi began life virtually interchangeable, just two different avatars, their very look dictated by the constraints of the hardware. But over time, as Mario became a veritable superhero, Luigi began to plough his own furrow as the more timid, more peaceable brother. His scaredy-cat antics in Luigi’s Mansion helped solidify this, and his meme-worthy Mario Kart side-eye hinted at a desire to score one over on his brother from time to time. Although still, really, a fairly blank slate game-wise, his is a story of character through decades of hints and gags and side-appearances.

Conrad B. Hart (Flashback, 1992): another blank slate, literally this time, as you play as an amnesiac with no idea why you were outrunning hoverbike-riding bad guys in the opening cutscene. Conrad sticks in my memory, though, through his beautiful animation; despite the stylised polygonal character design, he looked and felt fully human as he ran, rolled, and leaped across the screen.

Duke Nukem (Duke Nukem, 1991): a near-perfect marriage of game icon and game play; Duke embodies the very essence of Duke Nukem 3D. A brash and loud platform/shooter character in two original outings, it’s the seminal classic FPS for which he will always be remembered. Crass, vulgar, offensive, violent; all this and more. He’s a rather unlikeable character, but in leaning into his outlandish, boorish machismo, 3D Realms created a hilarious game which reflected the persona of its star to a tee. I’d love to see him brought back in a way that parodied the current culture of toxic masculinity, although I fear a good portion of the audience wouldn’t see the joke.

Dizzy (Dizzy – The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure, 1987): he’s an egg! Like, a walking egg! What’s up with that? Back when other folk were getting down with Mario or even Sonic, I was enjoying Britain’s bedroom coder equivalent. Characterful and cartoonish when that was virtually unheard of in games, Dizzy felt like a breath of fresh air, even if he probably smelt like a sweaty omelette.

Gordon Freeman (Half-Life, 1998): whilst “blank” characters are common in FPS games – Doom, Quake, Unreal, etc – Half-Life made that a feature. Gordon’s muteness became a character trait; was he traumatised, otherworldly, indifferent? As his messianic legend grew in Half-Life 2, and he became surrounded by believable and verbose characters, his silent demeanour and unconventional behaviour (really just standard FPS tropes) became more and more incongruous, and delightfully commented upon by those around him. Gordon Freeman represents, parodies, and explores every notion of player-character as transparent avatar, and does it utterly perfectly, creating his own distinct character even as he just utterly gets out of the way of you playing. You are Gordon, even though Gordon is really a nothing. Masterfully done.

I should have laid down some ground rules… the main one, I guess, was that all these characters had to debut within that game, which meant no Sam or Max, sadly. And though I’m listing their first appearances, in some cases it was a subsequent game where I fell in love with them (for instance, although I’d played Dark Forces, I became a fan of Kyle Katarn after playing and adoring Jedi Knight). Finally, I hope it’s obvious, but these are protagonists, not just game characters; the people you play as, properly, in a game (so not, say, Garrus from Mass Effect, even though you can control him during combat; the protagonist is still Shepard). This means no Elaine Marley or Alyx Vance. And though I’ve included “vessels” such as Dizzy and Freeman, I have excluded characters like Shepard, who really are just blank slates, to the point where you can even control what they look like (J.C. Denton nearly made the cut, though, as he does have a little bit more of a character of his own).