Daily Entertainment!

[splash_of_blue]

Stolen by kind permission of bjornwilde. :D

I am languishing in the most boring training day in the known world - yesterday was so boring, in fact, that I came up with not one, but TWO questions for you to entertain me yourselves with today!

OhGodohGod IT'S SO DULL I CAN SEE FOREVER

ONE! What do you love best about your pup? Is it what they represent? Is it their opening scene? Is it their PB? (Go on, we've all been that shallow.) Is it just one quote or action or aspect of their personality, or is it something more general, like their chemistry with another character?

Tag in with your pups and let other people tell you what they love best about your character!

ALTERNATIVELY...

Is there any particular moment in (or aspect of) your canons that you interpret noticeably differently to other fans? For example: in Avengers, during the Battle of New York, I read Bruce and Natasha's little 'I've seen worse.'/'Sorry.'/'No, we could use a little worse.' conversation to be essentially her suggesting that they could use the Hulk in this situation, to the extent that my Bruce account is actually called a_little_worse. But I know of fans who read that entirely differently. And, of course, in Harry Potter there are the infamous fandom attempts to woobify/sex up Draco Malfoy and Snape.) Are there any moments like that in your fandoms/canon? How do you deal with them in fic/RP?

DANCE, MY PUPPETS, DANCE.

Augh they're talking about 'stakeholders' and 'deliverables' HELP ME

Comments

[alas_a_llama]

Look, Bethan, sometimes, going forward, we have to go granular about precisely how we're going to disintermediate stakeholders in order to synchronise with how we can value add our bleeding-edge deliverables, or else we're going to have to rightsize this project.





Anyway.

Preeetty much what I love that Yugo is so nice. It's quite pleasant to have a character who doesn't really dislike anyone, and who has no ulterior motives and is always eager to help.

In contrast, I like Atton because he is terrible, and also not even remotely sane.

[splash_of_blue]

You just made me cackle out loud in the middle of a talk, damn you. *throws pillow*

(<3)

I love Atton because he is a dreadful person, but not a bad one. Much like someone else I know...

(Didst sleep okay?)

[the_gene_genie]

Gene:

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT GENE.

He's funny, and brash, and likes football and beer. He's loud, and drives too fast and is almost completely irreverent. He says what he thinks, and doesn't give a toss what anyone thinks of him. People might not like him, but they can never ignore him.

He's also clever, and kind, and works too hard (once he's grown up a bit), and really, really cares. His heart is the best thing about him. Along with his comedy timing. :D

Bruce (Wayne):

He's the goddamn Batman.

Which is actually not what I like best about him. He's just so...conflicted. And I love conflict in a character. It hasn't escaped me that my three current pups all have dual personalities. With Bruce, he's shaped by this one event in his past, and I love looking at how he's dealt with it, and how it shaped him. Plus, canon gives him some awesome shit to deal with...which I should also get on with putting him through.

Bruce (Banner):

Ohhhh, Bruce. See above re: conflict. But it's different with him, because his major incident was self-inflicted. And now he struggles to control it, and live with what happened. I adore how sad he is about it, and how he'll eventually get to rediscover what it's like to be accepted, and accept himself. *pats him*

In conclusion: conflict, and canon. They are what I love best about my characters.

[splash_of_blue]

Ahahaha oh Gene. I love what a complete mentalist he is, whilst still managing to frequently be the Only Sane Man.

With Bruce (Banner, obvs) I love his chippy, sarky side. He's so overwhelmingly sad, but occasionally you get this snippy, almost mischievous humour sneaking through, often with Bruce himself seems to be least expecting it. I think it's one of the things that Molly likes best about him, too - the other for her that he's still basically a lost boy, and that's always something that she can relate to because she's still officially lost herself. They're runaways who still sometimes chose to run into trouble, not away.

[ashen_key]

What you want me to be THINKY. NIGHT BEFORE STARTING NEW JOB! Curse yooooooou...

Um. Okay, why I ultimately love Natasha is two-fold. The first is that she used to be...a villain, basically. Free-lance assassins and con-artists are not nice people, and that was entirely her own choice. And now she's trying to repay her karmic debt, and make up for the chaos and bloodshed she caused just for a tidy pay-cheque by protecting the world. As a character-arc, you don't get many women who chose evil, and then work for their redemption. Of course what makes Natasha fun is that...she's still doing exactly what she was doing before (just now she gets a salary and has a boss who holds her leash - HI FURY) and remains basically a not very nice person at all. So, it's...complicated, and she's got this constant conflict running in her between nature, nurture, and choice. It's delicious.

But at the same time, she's not all murder, lies, and remembering morals. She's got a temper, she gets hurt, her work gets under her skin...and she has friends (and even in IM2, the way she says "you got your best friend back" to Stark, she just...she knows friendship, and she VALUES IT), she wears bright colours and fabulous clothes, she knows Latin. So, there is a lot going on with her and to build on. She's not just the lone assassin brooding over her crimes and being a terrible person, but she's got a life that she's determined to enjoy.

Also okay she and Clint are adorable, and TL plays the best Clint, so that was my hook to actually PLAY HER because yes. They are adorable and complicated and dorks. The end. <.<

(I should be asleep, BUT NEW JOB WILL BITE ME AHHHH)

AND I TOTALLY HAVE OTHER CHARACTERS WHOM I LOVE LOTS. WORDS HERE.

One thing about Kait - when her back is to the wall, she'll go "fuck the rules, fuck definitions, we're going to redefine them so we win. She has to be pushed to that point, but I love her for it.

Trudy sauntered on to the screen, didn't take any b.s. from her gunner, called her aircraft her baby, and took Jake as he was and never spoke down to him...and yeah, that was it for me. I just adored her from that scene onwards.

Jake's smirk when Quaritch asked him to fuck Augustine over. Grace Augustine just insulted him, rubbed his face into the fact that his brother was dead, and so when he had a chance to get back at her, he did. Which is something fandom loses - he's got a darkness to him, alongside the self-mockery and the impulsiveness. He's lost, yes, but I really liked that edge he has, and all he shows it as is this tiny, tiny smirk. And he's just FUN at the same time - he knows what he is, he has zero illusions, and his default state is to roll with it, do his job, and laugh when things get interesting. But that combination of throwing himself into things and just getting along with people, plus that dark pettiness.

Medusa is wonderfully not-human and has sisters, and SNAKES. And I love fucking around with mythology. But she's not human, is the most fun thing. She honestly views most of the people in the bar as food, it just wouldn't be polite to eat them.

Daniel needs to be EPed, but he's quiet, and thorough, and snarky, and in love with a girl far above his station, and he's so practical. So. Practical. Eloping with his one true love? He's going to make sure that he can support them. Just. Oh, Daniel.

I'M SORRY BETHAN I'LL STOP EDITING NOW.

[ceitfianna]

Your reason is why Sameth is head over heels in love with Kait, he can shape the world through magic and projects but she knows how to do it with words and herself. He's amazed by that and feels lucky that she wants to share any of that with him.

[gavin62truck]

It might sound mean of me, but I love that Tommy is so irreparably broken inside, carrying so much guilt and anger and pain, and the only redemption he finds is through his job. His life is shitty, what with all the awful choices he makes and the tragedies and traumas that plague him, but you show him a burning building and he will risk his ass to save a complete stranger. He's an alcoholic and an addict and an asshole, and yet he's supposed to be the good guy. I really enjoy exploring these layers.

Plus he's a goddamn fireman played by Denis fuckin' Leary. I mean c'mon.

[afullmargin]

I'm totally with you on the broken thing! It's one of the reasons I love writing Michael because no matter how easy it is to plaster on that big fucking grin he's functionally broken in a way that can't be fixed.

[damncompass]

Joshua: There's so much I love about Joshua, his devotion, both to his science and his little sister, his rambly way of talking when he's excited, and the freaking faces he makes. No, seriously. In the first W13 Christmas episode, he makes the best freaking faces. Oh, and his double-speak with his sister. "Claudiaaaa, don't you think Artie's father deserves the truth?"

As to what I take differently than most of canon... who knows. I seem to be one of the few Joshua fans out there, so who knows. I guess the one thing that I'd say is that in my version of Joshua, the teleportation accident was the almost-culmination of his Masters' work. Some people, probably to make it closer to the wierd ret-con of Claudia's age, make it his college work, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. (Also, can I take this moment to say WHERE THE HELL WAS JOSHUA IN LAST NIGHT'S EPISODE? Done now. Sorry. He was just a bit peeved at a lack of mention of him.)

Helena: Oh, my girl, how I love you. She's badass, she's broken, she's, well, I really don't think I've ever seen a character who's better suited to Meredith Brooks' Bitch. I really fell in love with her in her first Victorian episode. She was totally flirting with this one girl, who wasn't seeing, it and then turning and being an arse to her brother. Yes. That's my Helena.

As to what I see differently than canon/others: First and probably most controversial, I don't ship her with Myka. Sure, she'd flirt with her, but Helena's a Victorian. She knows when to stop flirting because someone's uncomfortable, and she never really got much of anything back from Myka other than awkward. (It was different with Claudia, but that's a complete other story.)

Second, I do -not- like the trident-magic 8 ball-whitewash plotline. That's not going to be a thing in-bar, because it just makes no sense. (Not going to spoiler actual-canon, but yeah.)

I'd love to hear what other people think of my lovelies....

[sdelmonte]

Helena is, at least to Howard, utterly charming. I like seeing another pup who is good at almost everything in the Bar. And who seems to be at ease with everything and everyone. Whatever angst she has is joyfully hidden beneath her intelligence and curiosity.

[sdelmonte]

Always the good questions on the days I have too much to do. Anyway...

Knox: He's me. Or the me I would have been if I were a crime reporter. That's why I plan to never retire him, even though I don't play him much.

Kirk: The old Kirk has always been the more interesting version of the character to me. Years of experience allowing him to be the leader he wanted to be when younger. But doubts of age and the passage of time creeping in. The hero in later life has always fascinated me.

Gibbs: He's just fun to play, exaggerated and verbose and a bit cracky and yet utterly competent.

Cy: Also just fun to play in the same sort of way. Only younger, and maybe a bit less cracky, and hiding a certain amount of depth you wouldn't expect.

Charlie: In his prime, one of my favorite DC characters, who evolved a lot more than most costumed heroes ever do. I also never quite know what he's going to say.

Howard: It wasn't the character as much as the era. My initial plan was to bring him in in 1946, and have him cope with the Cold War and with the unforeseen after-effects of working for proto-SHIELD. He's been great to play, but always with that goal in sight. And come July, I plan to jump him ahead to '46.

[splash_of_blue]

necessary_child - I love Sam because he's so completely irreverent: he doesn't take anyone too seriously, let alone himself.

lionlike_tabby - The thing I love best about Minerva is that she's this very prim, proper, stern woman with a frightening level of fire behind the mask. It's not something she's struggled with, as such; it's just how she is, and she demands that you respect that.

cute_bruiser - There are a lot of things that I love about Moll, but I think my very favourite is what she represents:
- that fun doesn't mean stupid
- that cute doesn't mean vulnerable
- that girly doesn't mean weak.

[herr_bookman]

Molly is adorable and milkshakes! Everywhere! I love how cheerful and empathetic she can be while still able to toss someone up on the roof.

[camwyn]

With Ray, what I always loved about him canonically was the head-on collision of gleeful enthusiasm and intelligence that you see in the movies. Didn't appear as much as I'd have liked in the cartoons, since the law of lazy cartoon writing dictates that there can only be one designated smart guy on the main cast otherwise the kids get confused, but Ray in the movies and the Ghostbusters: Legion comic would switch between engineering/parapsych technobabble and OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS POLE without batting an eye, and I loved that.

Gordon... Everything we know about Gordon's personality in canon is based on how other people react to his presence, since he never speaks and we see virtually nothing of his personal spaces. Since a major portion of Half-Life's appeal and impact when it came out revolved around OMG ALIEN INVASION IN EVERYDAY SETTING, rather than 'badass dude in power armor fighting aliens on spaceship', I went with the interpretation that Gordon, also, was as everyday as his environment. He's an ordinary theoretical physicist (of which I know two, so okay, my sample is a little skewed) who's up to his eyeballs in 'you want me to WHAT?', and I love that about him. Not the least of which is because it means that it's okay for me to get hurt and get lost and die repeatedly when I'm playing him, because he's not a trained military badass who's supposed to know what he's doing. It's humiliating when Master Chief can't shoot straight because his player doesn't know how to handle the controls; Master Chief is supposed to be the pinnacle of supersoldierdom. Gordon is a scientist. As of the first game he's lucky if he doesn't ICly shoot off his own feet. So it's okay for me to screw up playing him, because he's just this dude, and it's okay for him not to want to be badass 4 lyfe yo, because he's a scientist and he wants to go back to doing that. And I love that part about him.

Shephard has virtually nothing in the way of personality in canon, possibly even less than Gordon, since the majority of reactions to him are not so much to Adrian Shephard as they are to 'oh shit, Marine uniform'. The only canonical personality info we have about him comes from the bits of personal journal in the Opposing Force manual that I put in his user profile. I've been more or less free to create everything else about him as a result. I think what I'm most pleased with about him is his ability to go 'Shit. Huh. That's weird/painful/bizarre/a problem/all but impossible to overcome. Gimme a minute to think... okay, I'm good with that.' Accepting and adapting to pretty much anything dropped in his lap, even if the adaptation in question is to say 'this sucks, and you suck, and I am going to kill the fucking shit out of you now because you are a threat'- that's what I tend to like.

Thinking about the others, may update as I go.

[herr_bookman]

I don't know a lot about Shephard, but his profanity is highly amusing, and he's terribly intimidating overall. He appears to hold a great many reasonable things sacred, like the modesty of women (snrk!) and the records of the dead. Related: I like how kind he is to the trolls.

[nocarename]

Artemis: I love her snark over a soft gooey center of family issues. So many issues.
Ako: Her awareness that she isn't a major character and how she's fine with that, really. Secondary characters have much more reasonable lives.
Tyler: I should probably try and bring this out more, but even if he plays at being the sane man he totally isn't. Sane people don't date vampires. Certainly not more than once.
Janet: Her enthusiasm, disregard for positions of power while occasionally respecting the holders of the position and her willingness to reach for a bigger hammer for the bigger problems .
Robo: His bullheaded determination, even while seeking out adventure, to insist that the world make sense. After fighting cyborg-Nazis, clockwork pyramids with deathrays and extra-dimensional vampires. Not all in the same day, but still.

[herr_bookman]

Ako and Autor should have a talk about secondary character awareness post-his-canon. He'll write her a letter as soon as his wrists aren't broken.

[withherhands]

Woo I actually spotted a DE before I go to work!

Jack: I think the thing that really drew me to the character was that he's capable of doing all these horrible things to try and save innocent lives but that he pays a large emotional price. That he isn't an unfeeling robot so completely steeped in his own self-righteousness that what he does doesn't affect him. Which is also where I differed from a lot of the fandom because I actually saw people who wanted a 2-dimensional character who was so tough and badass that he never showed any crack ever, WTF. And after coming up with his reasoning, after years of playing him and writing fanfic the writers actually had him say all the things I'd been thinking.

Also there's the stuff we say glimpses of (seriously we're talking about 30 minutes of content in the entire series) that drew me to him. At one point he had family, he's been involved with a number of women over the years, he has (or had, they tend to die a lot) friends, so obviously there is more to this guy than CTU and angst, and I wanted to see who he was the rest of the time. :)

M: SHE'S JUST SO BADASS. I mean seriously, she's a woman at the top of a profession that is still very much a man's world, and she would have started/worked her way up at a time when it was even moreso (if not a total old boy's club). She's tough and doesn't take any shit, but she still has soft spots. In the Craig Bond films we see/hear her husband (though not much of him, sadly) and in one of the Brosnan Bond films she makes a comment about her children, so obviously she hasn't completely sacrificed a personal life for her career either (and similarly to Jack, I wanted to play her in an environment where she isn't "M" all the time). She also has kind of a soft spot for Bond, though that's partly because she knows he can be more and get the job done, even if she hates herself for it at times.

Seriously, the question is more what don't I love about M. :)

[bjornwilde]

Ben Grimm: He never quits, ever. He's like the best and coolest uncle ever. He has the power of deadpan snark. He is a living example of the old F. Scott FItzgerald quote, "Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy". As Sue says in these panels, he had every reason to become a villain but didn't.

Hank McCoy: HIs awkwardness is adorable, he's like all my high school awkward in one package. And since we're being honest, his actor is hot. I love his love for Raven and I will take that ship to my grave. In fact, I may have a made a few banners to this effect and a couple remixed webcomics.

As to a differing opinion with others, well I would say the final moment Hank sees Raven, now Mystique, in the movie, when she tells him "Mutant and proud" and he looks away. Fan opinion seems to be that he's like, "Yeah right. Bitch." but I think it's something wholly different. He is hurt and upset yes, but he is also blaming himself for pushing her away. He also doesn't want to tear up in front of Erik, Alex and Sean. I think what other fans forget is how cruel Hank had just been to Raven not 12 hours or so ago. He knows he pushed her away. What's worse is that he wanted to apologize in the hanger but never got the chance. Thanks Erik.

Andrea Nash: Much like Ben, she had every reason to become a horrible person. She grew up in a culture of abuse and could easily hate the world, instead she dedicates her life to fighting for a better world. She's also kept her humor and belief in love, despite being so damn brocken. She's also so one hell of a badass.

[sdelmonte]

Ben is one of those characters that no one can ruin, no matter how hard they try.

[leeshajoy]

I'm going to answer for Vanellope because, for her, my answer to both questions is one and the same. It's also spoilery for the end of Wreck-It Ralph, so I'll put it in whitetext.

So at the end of the film Vanellope's code is reset and we discover that she was originally Princess Vanellope. This has led to a bunch of the movie's fans complaining that Vanellope isn't part of the official "Disney Princess" roster. These fans, I feel, have missed the whole point of that ending scene, which is that Vanellope chooses not to be a princess. She rejects her assigned role in the game and opts instead to remain a glitch, which gives her more power and freedom than Princess Vanellope could ever have. That's what I love about her.

[minkhollow]

...There are people who think that should be a thing? Seriously?

[kd7sov]

One thing I really like about Felix is that he just doesn't stop. Kidnap his parents, strand him two oceans from where he needs to be, call him a traitor, it doesn't matter - he'll show up with a FLYING SHIP and save the world anyway. Seriously, he trekked across three continents and back for that ship, and that was before it had magic wings.

Fluttershy is just so cute. And not only visually; her personality is one I find adorable as well. Also, even though everypony - especially herself - tends to underestimate her, when properly motivated she is immensely capable.

I'm not really sure for Kain. Maybe I'll come back for him later.

[minkhollow]

Cata: I love playing with the idea of how people who were whitewashed bounce back from that, and I love how unapologetic Cata is about what she's done - yes, she walked away from people who possibly needed her, when she came to her senses. No, she's not sorry.

Sam: He's JUST A PROFESSIONAL (UNLESS YOU'RE RAPING SOMEONE), OKAY. His profession just happens to be killing people for money.
(For both of them, things I do differently than fandom: What fandom?)

Claudia: I love her enthusiasm, I love that she's not confident in everything she does, I love how fiercely she defends her family.
Things I do differently than fandom: Well, I don't believe the show's retcon that she was 19 in S1 and just turned 21 as of last night's episode; they've never retconned how long Joshua was in the interdimensional space, and without that the rest of the retcon doesn't add up. I know at least one person who doesn't think she acts early-20s in her first episode, but (and Quinn has vouched for this) she does act like early-20s-fell-off-the-college-rails.
There are also people who took her flip remark about electroshock in last week's episode as a sign that she did indeed get it while she was in the psych ward, buuuuuuut I don't think so? Would she really poke at Tesla innards so much if she'd had her brain fried?

Apollo: I love that he's so unapologetic about his own fabulousness. (I have no clue what the fandom does differently, but I suppose they may play less with the fact that he's myth-canonically bi? I dunno.)

Imp: Poor Imp. I always thought he deserved a chance to be more than a vessel for something that wanted to kill him.
(What I do differently from fandom: ...Give him the time of day.)

Regulus: OH, REGULUS. Purely canonically, I love that he had the balls to steal a Horcrux when he decided Voldemort wasn't the way to go after all, rather than running to join the Order or anything. For my interpretation, I love his determination to use his influence to actually fix the Ministry's problems rather than let them keep festering.
Things I interpret differently: ...well, rather than JKR's former Seeker and once-enthusiastic Death Eater who sacrificed himself for Kreacher of all people, I have a kid who doesn't like Quidditch much and was more on the path to join up because his cousin is frightening when she doesn't get her way (he's done a lot out of self-preservation). Fandom has a lot of different interpretations of Regulus, though, with how little canon he got.

Red: I ADORE RED OKAY. She's another who will defend her family to the death; that moment where she realises by 'family' she means Snow more than her mother? BEST THING. Also when she rescued Dr. Whale from his manpain and got all 'I'm glad you're feeling better, SO NOW YOU CAN LEAVE, GRR' at the car-crash guy.
Things I do differently from fandom: Ruby/Whale became a popular pairing after that manpain rescue, but I see them more as bros than dating.

And I would love to hear what other people think of mine!

[leeshajoy]

There are also people who took her flip remark about electroshock in last week's episode as a sign that she did indeed get it while she was in the psych ward, buuuuuuut I don't think so? Would she really poke at Tesla innards so much if she'd had her brain fried?

There's also the fact that electroshock therapy hasn't been done in the US in decades.

[varadia]

What I love about X-23 is a) her deadpan snark in canon -- seriously the best is when Logan gets half his face lopped off and X is all 'you heal too slow', b) the fact that she was designed as the direct inverse to Logan, emotionless computer self and all and c) that she is so determined to be a thinking, feeling person who gets to make choices, despite half the world telling her she can't/shouldn't/it's better not to. I do, however, ignore the soul thing in Milliways, largely because by the time canon made that a thing, X had grown beyond that in-game.

For Raven I love that there's the trickster/troublemaker/guy that gets into trouble for doing stupid things, but behind that there is the one that sets things right, the one whose missteps set the world the way it should be. Demonstration of the rules of existence and the consequences for breaking them, kind of. Plus the story about granting light and providing water are pretty awesome.

For Dean Winchester it's his protective big brother instincts, screwed up as they sometimes are. I love his love for his family, and also his inability to talk to dudes, because at least with women he can start with flirting and that opens the door to conversation. Dudes outside of work -- he is so bad at it. So bad. Unless they are people he has known his whole life, or other hunters. Or people he wants to protect.

Sam Tyler -- I love how he tries to add rationality to this completely crazy experience, and how he both tries really hard to fit in and at the same time denies the reality of this world he's starting to think of as real. Also the general interactions with Gene and his time. So snarky!

Wonder Woman. Hmm. I love a lot of things about Diana, but I think my favorite one is her heart, and how she can see the necessity of killing in battle or for the greater good, but her first instinct is always to extend an open hand of peace and negotiation. I adore that. And that she's so not full of herself, and she could be.

Galadan -- my favorite thing in canon is that you see him initially as this mysterious, powerful, evil force who seeks the world's end and has allied with an existential horror in order to get it. He plots genocide, he gives people over to rape and other horrible fates, and at the end of the day it's all the residual tantrum of a child who didn't get what he wanted. Just. Man. He totally does not deserve mystique, and I love that canon takes it away from him.

Michael the Archangel's canon is a hot mess. But what I love more than anything is her sneaky rule-defying, despite her brother's initial opinion that she is more rigid than a flagpole. But she has been on earth the whole time, finding people she can grant some of her power to (like the cop-guy whose name I cannot remember), and how at the end she throws the competition with the Dragon's champion for the stated reason that angels do not do the bidding of dragons, but really because throwing it would let her brother back into Heaven, because she missed him and had not smiled since he left. Yeah. Best Michael.

Nynaeve. Oh man, I love her spirit, I love her growth, I love how she is so unsure of herself and yet is so amazingly brave in putting herself forward despite that. My favorite is her crankiness, though, and how even with affection she is so brisk and snarky. Yes. <3

I am curious about others' opinions, too!

[sdelmonte]

X is all straight shooting, no BS whatsoever. In doses of six words of less. Given Charlie's tendency to be verbose and more full of himself than he ever realizes, that is so welcome.

Diana is, when handled right, all the things you mention. A lot of writers, even good ones, forget that. (I love Kingdom Come. But Waid never quite seemed to understand that "warrior for peace" didn't have to be a contradiction.)

[bcgphoenix]

Gaeta: Oh, Felix. My baby. I love how his guiding principle is always "do the right thing," even when it gets skewed and manipulated by surrounding people/events -- his attempts to do the right thing have backfired spectacularly on multiple occasions, but he never stops trying anyway. I love that he's a super-smart, competent officer. His fall from grace never stops breaking my heart, but I love that anyway, too.

And almost everybody in BSG fandom haaaaaaates him. They come at the mutiny from the perspective of the omniscient viewer and see it as Unequivocally Bad From The Start, saying stuff like "oh he's just mad because he lost his leg, the little pissant." Obviously, I...see it rather differently. *weak smile* Like how some people might be uncomfortable allying with the folks who exterminated 99.9% of the human race four years ago? Just maybe? (Related to that, I will never stop pimping Slow Down Gandhi, which is one of my favorite BSG fanvids ever -- it tackles the mutiny from the perspective of the civilians and the people on Gaeta's side, and it makes me feel so much less alone in my LOOK YES THE MUTINY WAS AWFUL BUT ADAMA AND ROSLIN ARE NOT EXACTLY SAINTS HERE.)

Bolin: He's just such a sweetheart! He likes almost everybody he meets and is a genuinely nice guy -- plus, I love his boundless enthusiasm and how comfortable he is in his own skin. And even though Mako deflected the worst of their time on the street, the fact that Bolin can be that cheerful after what he went through shows a ton of resilience on his part, which I adore. Also: even though he's understandably heartbroken when Korra doesn't like him back, he eventually shrugs it off with, "yeah, it didn't work out, but that's okay," and continues being friends with her without it turning into a Nice Guy thing. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated seeing that.

I am actually not too heavily involved in LoK fandom, so I have no idea how much my headcanon matches up with everyone else's.

Olivia: Takes no shit, vocally fights back against the sexist assumptions other people make about her, blazingly competent, and she's got superpowers (kind of) -- all while maintaining what people consider "feminine" traits, like compassion, a mothering instinct, and a refusal to suppress all emotion. (She even says flat-out at one point that getting emotionally invested in her cases makes her a better agent.) Really, there was no way I WASN'T going to fall for her the first time I saw Fringe.

The biggest think I am alone in is my immense dislike of Olivia/Peter, because -- at least to me -- it was the start of pushing the show's lens away from Olivia and onto the story of yet another straight white guy. That wasn't what I signed up for, especially when it reduced Olivia's role in saving the universe to "bearing Peter's child," basically. No idea how that eventually resolved -- I ragequit the show after S4 -- but when I left off, it was with a great frustration and grumpiness.

The Trickster: He's an utter jerkface asshole, but since his main targets are other jerkface assholes, half the time you're like, "...I can't even be mad." And ugh, his backstory gets me RIGHT THERE -- the idea of being so heartbroken by Heaven's war that he ran away rather than bear it for another second.

Like Bolin, I'm not involved enough in SPN fandom to know where my headcanon aligns with other people's and where it doesn't. Like, I'm not sure if anybody else followed my train of thought from "Gabriel took on an identity that allows for boundless creation, on a planet widely considered to be his Father's greatest creation, after running away from a hugely destructive war." (I think I summed it up in an OOM once as, "I can't be among destruction anymore; I have to be among creation." And yet he fell in love with Kali. Go figure.) He just loves Earth so much, you guys. So much.

Also, tons of people ship him with Sam for some reason. Maybe to balance out the sheer amount of Dean/Castiel? I dunno.

And I would love to hear about what everybody thinks of my pups! :D

[batyatoon]

Actually it makes perfect sense that Gabe fell in love with Kali, in light of that.

Because she's both destruction and creation, and rebirth after destruction.

[not_my_sandbox]

Thinking about it, the thing I like about pups is storytelling potential. The reason I don't play with Evil Chicken is because of the lack of potential. Sure, Evil Chicken has backstories. Multiple backstories, in fact, but none of them are necessarily true. Evil Chicken also has no story going forward. Evil Chicken just is, and that is sorta boring. Infact, I was trying to make Evil Chiken interesting when I bumped into the lore about Amascut and distracted myself. I could make something up for Evil Chicken but I would be stomping canon into dust.

Amascut is on the surface just a villain who wants to destroy the world for some reason. But the reason is what I want to explore, and how she came to be this way as well, together with what she is trying to do about it. For someone who purportedly wants to wreck everything, she is very indirect about it and I want to find out why.

Fairy Fixit was someone I was wavering on for a long time. She was going to be my pup that I could use to indulge in a knowledge area similar to my own and who was used to paradoxes and wild anchronisms (and perhaps broken fourth walls). But what finally made me decide to app her was the death of Guthix, who very probably was a god to at least some of the Zanaris fairies, and his very strange parting words and desires. It would have left the Zanaris fairies with a very odd misotheistic edge to them, and that was something I wanted to play with in Milliways a bit, especially since there are gods in the bar.

My opinions about my pups are different from fandom's mostly because they are minor characters which most players don't even think about. Even Amascut is a minor goddess who is safely ignorable. Sure, players have to interact with her Sumona alias for a good long while if they decide to train up their slaying skills. She is the god that has the most interaction with players, technically. But most move on past her toward higher level slayer masters only making a mental note that they are sooo going to kill her when they get the chance.

[boston_bruiser]

This'll be brief because I'm tired.

What I love about Voodoo is his aggressiveness and tenacity. He's been compared to a pitbull before, and it fits. Sometimes he gets a little overzealous, but don't we all?

What I love about John Marston is his steadfast incorruptibility. Throughout the story, no matter how bad you play him, he's a family man to the bone.

What I love about Mako is his loyalty.

[mnt_mike]

Raph was my first ever fandom favorite guy, and even though originally it was the Old Toon version of him I loved...the big lug from Mirage won me over. What I like about Raph is that he's the perfect Ex-boyfriend. He's the guy you have a history with, who you loved and who at one point loved you and because of that you know will always be there for you if you need him, but oh dear Glod is it good that you don't have to put up with his shit anymore.

Mike I like that Mike is happy-go-lucky. That he's optimistic and his first instinct is to think the best of people. I like that he loves the things he loves with absolutely no shame or remorse for loving them.

Splinter This is the hardest one thus far and really...I'm not surprised. I like Splinter because of his place in the family. I like that he knows everything and is mysterious that way. But...I love playing him because he's such a blank slate in so many interpersonal ways.

Aang He's my favorite character in all of the Avatar Universe. Even more than my headcanon for Bumi...which is saying something. Aang is joy that's been fettered down by responsibility and circumstance and big D Destiny. But...he's still joy.

Bumi Wants to like everyone, but is more than willing to punch you if you aren't deserving of his affability. He's a kid who grew up with absolutely no expectations and very few boundaries, and he's risen to fill up all that space...and then some.

Ida Is snarky, and who doesn't love snarky?

The Loompas Are instruments of destruction, and they even sing their own theme songs.

As for the Alternate:

My take on the Mirage Turtles is somewhat different than a lot of other fans.
I've had criticism that Raph would never have allowed himself to turn human, which I disagree with. He hates his lot in life, and I see him diving for any chance to change that lot...diving head first without so much looking where he's going, but diving just the same.

No one plays Bumi yet, and canon has yet to be determined. I'm going to be so sad when it is.

[bjornwilde]

What I love about Aang and his story is how the series ended. Everyone and the world was telling him to go one way and it really looked like he was going to *have* to do something completely against his nature and teachings but at the last minute, he found a way to win with his morals intack.

[vivien]

Tom Riddle - I was initially drawn to the young version of Voldemort for the "how did he get there" and "what could have been" ponderings of fanfic. I wrote a long fic about him before Milliways existed and many little fics exploring those two questions. I never intended to redeem him, but man, did it happen easily, because who really wants to grow up to be a crazed monster with no nose who gets beaten by a teenager? I love Milliways Tom because he fits into London Below so freaking well. You have to be a fierce Slyhterin there, or you die. Of all the versions of him I've AU'd, the Milliways version is my favorite, because he became so much more than he could have been as Voldemort, but he retained his edge and the moral ambiguity that is more interesting to play. He's a strong, yet still dangerous and powerful, man.

Ingress only has a couple of sentences of canon, and Lynette, her first mun, made her a mischievous, slightly traumatized but recovering kid. When I took her over, I kept that characterization and helped her grow up. I love her because she's a kid who's lived through a lot, but it hasn't brought her down. She is resilient and good-hearted.

Bela Talbot is stylish, smart, and fun with a side of tragedy. I didn't know about said tragedy when I first apped her. I apped her because I loved how sassy and gorgeous she was, and I wanted a sassy and gorgeous character who could cause a ruckus. Then she became a lot more.

Gilderoy Lockhart is a crack character, but I feel for him, too, I his current state. He's pathetic,but he tries! He's fun to p,ay, because he doesn't have to remember a damn thing, which is good since my memory is full of Swiss cheese!

run-on justifications of doom

[herr_bookman]

I am throwing Autor in here just to say that fandom despises him with the power of a thousand suns, likely because he's haughty and whiny and not actually all that smart and wants to have the villain's powers (though we're not told what the kid would do with them) and is (gasp!) mean to the protagonists, whom we have had time to empathize with.

It is a hilarious bit of meta that the majority of fandom acknowledges his contributions to the show--some of which are fairly useless, but most are not, and all come at his personal cost and other people's benefit--for a brief, shining moment as, "Oh, thank you for explaining everything. Thank you for directly putting yourself in harm's way to save the sexy one that even the show compares you to and finds you wanting. Thank you for getting your heart thrashed so that she can grow as a character. Now go away."

I love and hate that Autor exists as a foil for the edification of everyone else, and not only does he end up with nothing, his heart is broken and his dreams are destroyed. He is the only person without a happy ending, and he gave up everything for it.

*cough* I didn't realize I had feelings about this.

Re: run-on justifications of doom

[bjornwilde]

This reminds me so much of Loki from mythology. I don't know if that's good or bad and of course Loki tended to be the one to start the trouble in the first place.

[aberration]

Elle - She's sort of difficult to talk about this way, because her canon really comes down to a few episodes in s2. In s3, it's pretty clear the writers stopped caring about her characterization and just saw her as a means to do something with Sylar, which... then in turn gets to how much they cared before. I mean. I liked her at first because I like funny female quasi-villains. Then she became one with a fucked up childhood, which is ... even more a thing for me. But I guess on a meta level, I like that she won't operate the way you'd expect her to, because she was brought up in entirely different social parameters, and her brain just... doesn't function entirely like others' do. It makes her behavior really counterintuitive (or: weird), and I like puzzling that out. Elle's my easiest headvoice, but she's also one I have to actively solve like a proof sometimes.

Also, I just like to bother people and she makes that easy. I mean what.

People have... very different views of Elle... and I'll just leave it at that.


Asami - She gets to be pretty and wear makeup and nice clothes and also be capable of operating literally any machine that's in front of her and be an excellent fighter, and none of this is treated as contradictory. She is allowed to be feminine without this also meaning that she's shallow or incompetent, and I love that. I also like to view LoK as about the positive interplay is magic/spiritualism and technology, and I like Asami's role in that, as despite being a non-bender, she works out how to make use of both.

Fandom has some... very different views on Asami, with I guess the ones that I disagree with most vehemently being that she's a Mary Sue (don't be good at anything, ladies - be bad at things so we can hate you for that instead!), or that she should have sided or at least sympathized with the Equalists (... nope, not so much in my view).

Leslie - She is so intensely POSITIVE and ADORABLE and GENUINE and acts on a real desire to help others but is also sometimes struck by self-doubt or handles things in ways she probably shouldn't but we secretly all want to. Granted, her relentless emotion can make her kind of exhausting, but I love that she's allowed to be that in a positive, capable way.

Manny - I really love Grim Fandango's noir angle, so my favorite thing about Manny is probably how he speaks. And also that he's kind of a dork.

Marceline - Again, I like funny quasi-villain ladies. And she sings, and always floats around rather than standing or walking. And like I said before: bothering people.

Hiccup - He is tiny and sarcastic. And he has a dragon that acts like a cat. So.

Katara - I was the sort of mother hen of my group of friends as a kid, so I can relate to her on that. I like that she's passionate, and that this manifests both as her caring about others and showing emotion, and also as her being a total badass when necessary. (The scene when she threatens to kill Zuko is one of my favorites in the series.)

[kd7sov]

The thing about Asami and fandom that really weirded me out - though I'm pretty sure it's much less a thing now - was that when she first appeared, everyone seemed to think she was a villain spy or some such. And their justification seemed to be that she was tall, dark, and hand pretty, and apparently interested in Our Heroes. (Because, you know, no pretty person is ever interested in sports figures or international... whatever category you can fit the Avatar into.)

[inlovewithwords]

Question two: I don’t pay much attention to fandom, so except maybe interpretations of Clark, I don't know. But that’s a massive tl;dr. So, my typecasty question one:

Henry: I love how his actions show his spirit despite his age: determination, cleverness, courage, capacity for love, and faith that Good Will Win.

Lois Lane: tl;dr: She's Lois Lane, what don't I love.

She's a strong, independent, professional, ethical, snarky, brave, passionate woman, often ahead of her time, who takes no quarter and fights with words for (yes I know) truth and justice. And yet she is flawed and can be dismissive, thoughtless, or tactless. She is beautiful, but in a human way. I especially love her Smallville growth arc. (And Lois/Clark is beautiful.) She is quintessentially human, all since 1938. She's Lois Lane. I love her.

Tavi: tl;dr: He is Complicated.

He is brilliant, creative, a little insane, compassionate, has ingenuity, loyal, courageous, ambitious without thirst for power, charismatic but sometimes bad at interpersonal, manipulative, ethical, calculating, cold-blooded, pragmatic, deadly, rewrites rules to suit himself, passionate, dedicated. He mixes humor with sharp observation; warmth, passion, and cold analysis; playing games with people; weight of history with invention for the future; confidence and insecurity simultaneously over a single issue; arrogance and mild entitlement while never looking down on anyone; desire to learn; deep compassion with pragmatic 'ends necessitate means;' and a passionate dedication to Alera far beyond himself and nearly beyond reason.

Writing all that in the same tag, thought, or even sentence is complex and tiring, yet also refreshing and exhilarating. I love him for it.

(Also, kicks everyone's butts without Pokémon before becoming a Roman emperor with Pokémon who fights Zerg. C'mon, it's awesome.)

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark is a second-generation hero. He grew up knowing what his father did for work, knowing that he might get to do it as well, and hoping he could. When that happened, it was one part "I have superpowers; this is awesome!" and one part "I get to do the same thing that the person that I respect the most in the whole world does. Not only do I have that ability, but I also have permission from that person." It's a superteen story that didn't really get told, until Kirkman told it.

And then there was the Twist. And contrary to what you might expect, Mark didn't actually defeat his father. But despite that major worldview-shattering revelation and the morale-draining defeat that followed it, he is still going. That's what I like about Mark; he doesn't quit. Ever.

[ceitfianna]

I will try and not be too long with this. I don't pay a huge amount of attention to most of my fandoms though tumblr is slightly changing that.

Will was one of the first book characters I fell in love with and it was because of his loyalty. The version of him that caught me was Will Stuteley in Creswick's Robin Hood with the N.C. Wyeth illustrations. He ends up going to the gallows for trying too hard, he's full of jokes and love for Robin and in time Little John and he snuck into my heart. There are other versions of him I adore, there was a kid's cartoon The Adventures of Young Robin Hood which is just young him for me. I love how complicated he is as well, he knows he's a thief, he's never had it easy yet this brilliant, shining man sees something in him and he wants to live up to that. In Milliways, he's grown a lot but at heart, he is and will ever be Robin's man.

Charles is a character who I connect with because of his empathy, his compassion and his vision. He wants to make the world better and he can feel all this pain around him and can't fix it all, which hurts. Yet he's also privileged through wealth, being a white guy and with an invisible mutation and sometimes he sees that but not always. I think really why I love him is that he keeps trying to make the world better even if something's wrong because of what he did. That really comes through with his relationships with Raven and Erik, he keeps looking for ways to help and messes up along the way, but cares so much. Then canon breaks him and he has to reexamine everything. Oh and James McAvoy's face because damn, he's so good. From the fic I've read, I think fandom makes him too perfect at times, when what makes him fascinating to me is when he messes up, how he's figuring out how to be a telepath and a mutant without a lot of other people to compare to. In Milliways, I can play with that, but I think that's part of it, he wants to learn and improve as well as change the world.

Sameth is the creator in a world that's better suited for those who are fighters and destroyers. He spends a good part of canon feeling like he's failing at what he does but when he's called upon to stand up for those he cares about, he does his best. When he makes mistakes, he tries to fix them and sometimes it doesn't work.

William is angry, hurting and knows how powerless he is which makes him angrier. I enjoyed the short story when I read it but Logan Lerman made William stay in my head as he held his own against Christian Bale and Russell Crowe and showed this boy becoming a man as well as trying to find his own way.

Moist is a con man, a trickster, someone who loves words, who knows how to read people and just wants to get on the road and go where he wishes. He's fun and I love how Pratchett writes his voice, because there's something charming about him. He's surprisingly uncomplicated too, I mean I've given him backstory, he does feel real but one reason he's my escape valve character is how easy he is.

Demeter cares almost too much and I always feel like in terms of myths, never gets mentioned enough. As Ashie said, I love an excuse to mess around in mythology and her Persephone woke Demeter up. I love how powerful she is and how kind she can then she'll have a moment where you're aware, not human.

Jane is intelligent, driven, stuck in an impossible position and knows what she wants. I adore her canon and loved her from the first moment she came on screen, but didn't feel up to writing her until Jen went, you can do this. I love her wit and how she boldly takes on the world which isn't ready for her yet.

Tumnus is like Will, loyalty and compassion and can't fix all that he wants to in his world. He feels powerless and yet he keeps doing his best. He was another early character for me, that I read and just went oh Tumnus. To be able to RP him and write him still amazes me at times because he's Tumnus.

I honestly can't understand anyone wanting to write anything adult oriented with him, I just can't. My brain breaks at it.

The Pirate King is Kevin Kline singing Gilbert & Sullivan in a low cut shirt and tight pants. He's so gloriously himself.