Daily Entertainment

[2goodarms]

Wanton DE Thievery is a go! (And also the name of my new band.)

There's only so much canon can supply us when we're fleshing out our pups -- and like the old saying goes, "write what you know." Are there any pieces of yourself you've put into your characters? It doesn't necessarily have to be anything big; maybe they have the same favorite food as you, or a couple of the same habits.

Alternately, an oldie but a goodie: what's your favorite piece of headcanon you've concocted?

Comments

[camwyn]

Gordon Freeman has a fondness for the same specific SF and fantasy books and movies that I do, including Millicanon comments about 'I am not the Kwisatz Haderach' and direct quotes of Dune, Galaxy Quest, and Neverending Story.

Adrian Shephard does traditional archery and primitive bowhunting; I developed an interest in archery in college and have never used anything more complicated or technological than a takedown recurve.

Ellen is a massive comic book fan. The only real indication of the Lone Wanderer's interest in comics in canon is that they get a Grognak the Barbarian issue as their tenth birthday present; the fondness is headcanon influenced by my own preferences. She also likes a number of the same kinds of junk food I do, such as ramen noodles, although in her case that's largely because things like Cram were considered incredible treats, so special food tended to equate to BOY HOWDY THAT SURE IS SALTY AND ARTIFICIAL in her mind.

[manofbusiness]

Childermass' mother was mixed race (I have to confess, I didn't make that up, I stole it from a fic on AO3, but it's my favourite).

He keeps that dead secret, though, because she told him to as he can pass for Italian (thank you, Enzo Cilenti). And this is why he hates slavery, because a mixed-race woman in 19th century Yorkshire? 70/30 chance there were slaves somewhere in the line.

[camwyn]

As for the other characters that I haven't really inserted all that much of myself into, I am firmly convinced that Stacker Pentecost is fond of Hong Kong street food, particularly Wo Lop's dandan noodles, and that he only eats them one out of every four times he wants them because he has orders from his doctor not to take chances with anything that could put extra strain on the radiation-weakened blood vessels in his brain. The Jaeger didn't give him cancer, it gave him extremely dangerous aneurysms, and metharocin helps to keep the worst of that under control but puts the rest of his system in danger with prolonged use.

Also it is my private headcanon that he is fond of Filipino speed metal and does not see any reason why he should share this fact with anyone.

[bjornwilde]

I love this topic, even if my brain's not really up for it.

Selina loves dancing. This is something I took from both my love of dancing and her actress being a dancer.

The Empire's policy on Mandalore is much like the US government's with the Native Americans in the 19th century. Sabine will be spending a lot of time searching for what it means to be a Mandalorian.

I think a lot of Hank's insecurities mirror my own remembered ones from my teen years.

In Izana's future they will be given a sword as a sort of good luck charm. Given they are in a confined cockpit, the sword is likely a chisa katana or wakizashi but Izana will decide they need to learn to use it out of respect for the weapon. This steams from my wish to learn fencing; either Western or Kendo.

[bjornwilde]

Continuing...
The Luidaeg loves food with strong flavors which is all me. In canon, she's often shown to drink Diet Coke and eat B&J's Phish food. I've gone further to say she likes dried shrimp, nori, wasabi peas, and the like. She tends to isolate herself if she doesn't get pulled out of her life. One of the reasons she loves Quinten and Toby is that they started actually pushing to spend time with her.

She avoids the sea back home, in a sort of self imposed exile. Which is why she loves Milliways and spends time in the lake.

Quinlan tends to play dumb or flippant. He also can shift between personalities due to his time working various undercover jobs while a Jedi. Originally this was my way of meshing his comic book self (serious and at times grimm) with his Clone Wars appearance (flippant surfer) but canon has backed me up in Dark Disciple.

[aberration]

Will Graham's gender issues have been kind of a way to express my own, albeit he comes at it from a very different perspective.

That's probably the biggest thing of any of them. In a lot of cases if I'm going to do something like that, it's more an off-the-cuff thing where I happen to know something/have had some experience/don't feel like doing research. E.g., there's a Will OOM where he's talking about gulls clearing up blood left on the beach from "cleaning fish" (or in this weird nightmarescape, stabbing people), which came from my own fishing experiences. … and I know other things but it's super late for me and I can't think of them. Um.

Random headcanons!

- When she was ~14 Asami had a crush (like a real crush, and Asami almost never has ~real~ crushes) on a 24-year-old Future Industries employee named Kirana (who's been mentioned in an OOM). It wasn't something she thought about seriously (for obvious reasons), but it was enough to make Asami a little stutter-y and nervous when around her. She eventually got over it. (The Kirana character also comes from another Avatar-related fic thing I was doing at one point, and she is a firebending transwoman.)

- I've mentioned it before, but besides Winston and Buster, Will Graham's dogs are named: Miranda (after one of the women keepers of Biloxi Light), Hedy (after Hedy West, because "500 Miles" is one of my Molly/Will songs), Jackson (after Jackson Square in New Orleans), Dixon (from Dwight Dixon from Pushing Daisies), and Louie (because I thought it was cute).

- This is something I'm begging to get Jossed on and so will probably never use it, but kind of modeled off one of the inspirations for Hiroshi Sato, the surname Sato was actually initially Asami's mother's name. Yasuko Sato was the daughter of a wealthy Fire Nation woman and an Earth Kingdom man, and her father was Hiroshi Sato's initial investor who enabled him to create the Satomobile. Hiroshi named the Satomobile for him, and adopted the surname when he married Yasuko.

- While the real reason Will uses metaphors so much is that he's on a Bryan Fuller show and just happens to be the person who talks the most, I also have my own in-universe reason, which is that Will has actual difficulties with expressing himself through literal/direct speech. It sort of draws from descriptions from very strong visual thinkers of words being a second language to them, after images. Though in this case it manifests in a ... completely opposite way, in that Will has an easier time with figurative language than direct speech. Because so much of how he experiences the world happens through the experiences and perceptions of others, he also has an easier time expressing himself indirectly, through other experiences. He can't just say he's feeling nervous or scared or apprehensive, because those words have no inherent meaning beyond what we imbue them with, and he ends up getting/having diverse opinions about what that meaning should be. It's much easier to say "nerves clicking like roller coaster cogs pulling up to the inevitable plunge" because that has such a specific, visceral meaning, much more than any single word could. He processes so much through a certain amount of synesthesia and visual/emotional cross-referencing, to the point that the only way he can really conceptualize one experience is through another, so that in a way figurative language is like a first language for him. And that's why everything he says is Something Poetic and Vaguely Creepy :\


And also: why am I awake

[i_am_your_host]

While the real reason Will uses metaphors so much is that he's on a Bryan Fuller show

Yes. Very good. Exactly. XD But your explanation is fantastic and makes all the sense.

[yakalskovich]

I love your headcanons for Will!

[sdelmonte]

I layered on some of my Jewish identity to Knox, along with a lot of my New Yorker-ness. (Robert Wuhl is Jewish, so that is my excuse, but it's fun to have a character be just a little like me.)

[ceitfianna]

Oh this is an interesting one.

Charles and I share a love of Earl Grey tea, that one's from canon but his interest in certain points is one of those places where canon and headcanon meet like The Once and Future King but I also think he enjoys Narnia. I have this idea of him being drawn to some of these fantasy books looking for where he might fit and the dream of finding the people who get and see him. I also imagine that he's sat quietly and fanboyed at Tolkein and Lewis in Oxford. When he was a teen, he thought the epitome of cool was Frank Sinatra, he still does but he's not as obvious about it. Part of this is he had a crush on Frank Sinatra and also younger Frank kind of looked like him, so he tried to copy his style of dress. When Frank played a shy and nerdy character like in On the Town, he got the girl which gave Charles hope.

Quentin doesn't actually hate classic rock as much as he acts like he does to Toby, its just he can't hear the words and he likes music with a story in it. And he knows that Toby likes her music and teasing her about it makes her smile. Quentin's immediate thought in terms of a crisis is where's Toby and when did she last eat, because she will be bleeding and need to rebuild. He tends to be very quiet about when he has crushes since relationships are never simple in his world. That's why even though there are people in Milliways, he has little crushes on, he hasn't done anything. His last relationship ended so badly and he's picked up some of Toby's cautiousness about getting people hurt.

When Sameth and Nick were at school, Nick started the conversation and basically chose Sameth as his friend. Nick's also always been the louder one but Sameth is the better fighter as he's more willing to hit hard. Sameth is also more aware of his limits than Nick because in terms of fights, he worries about being a berserker like his father.

Will knows how to read and write thanks to Milliways but he's never been comfortable with either of them. He enjoys spicy food and chocolate and always feels like he's having a treat no matter how often he's had them.

William still has trouble sleeping straight through the night, because he's used to waking up when Mark had difficulty breathing. Even though Milliways has lots of really good kinds of coffee, when he's tired and just wants to wake up, he prefers the kind he makes at home. He finds it weird how few people in Milliways actually know how to ride or understand horses.

Moist misses the pastries from Uberwald, nothing else is as filling or comforting to him. He also considers Uberwaldian the best language for being angry. He feels underdressed if he doesn't have a tie, he doesn't even have to be wearing the tie but he has to have one.

Jane's favorite places to write are when she's in a place with people but they're not near such as when the house is all asleep. It makes her feel like she has space.

Ivan can list off most of the injuries and ailments that Miles has suffered and what will help him feel better because growing up, they spent a lot of time together. No one ever asked him to, it was just what he did and he knows Miles knows.

Demeter collects seeds on her travels and in her pockets there's always wheat in some form whether seeds, bread or something else.

Tumnus always spends more time in Cair Paravel when winter begins to remind himself that the Witch won't return.

[onceaviking]

Ehm - I can't say sarcasm, because Eric is pretty sarcastic on the show but -

[lazy_but_loyal]

Playing Pam lets me be my inner sarcastic bitch without repercussions. Unless by repercussions we mean being endlessly chattered at by Father Harman.

[crazyfurries]

I'm not certain I gave anything to Dot Matrix anything that came out of me in real life, but as far as Tyler Marlocke(both ages) and Darryl 'Mother' Roskow go...

There is a deep love of food. It could be argued that this too passed in Dot Matrix's file for influences, but the woman started up her own diner at age 19 and has the best food in town to this date. She already had the food love goin' for her long before I had her as a headvoice.

With both stages of Tyler, food is a thing of comfort. In his younger years simply consuming it can bring about a sense of well being and stability. (thank you, Ray Stantz, for your many nights spent in the service of calming down night terrors with Ovaltine, graham cracker sammiches of various fillings and long talks. These foods are now immortalized as comfort.) As an adult, the comfort food brings isn't just as something that will nourish and comfort 'Beauford Tannen' but in the act of cooking and preparing dishes for others... is an outlet for any feelings of frustration he may be having. If he can not take care of THIS particular thing, he can at least cook to cope with it.

With Mother... ...his food drive manifests as part of his paranoia, in that he generally only gets his food from Farmer's Markets, Organic Co-ops, you get the idea. The less processed it is, the more trustworthy It MUST. BE! He does have my utter love of himalayan cuisine though. Even wrote him visiting a place I used to visit an hour away on almost a monthly basis. Granted, I had relocated it to Utah at the time, but the sentiment still stands.

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei is very interested in computer security (which is the field his mun works in). He has actually used the term "attack surface" in reference to magical phenomena, specifically mages' vulnerability to demons and other nasty things.

[inlovewithwords]

I think that a summary is that while most of my characters I chose because I thought they were Neat, Evelyn is Choose Your Own enough she will end up more like me, and my Big Two are sometimes too like me because of canonical cadence of speech, preferences, thought process, whatever.

R2-D2: Hilariously, a joke discussion with my friends once led to the conclusion that I was secretly Artoo and this is why Artoo is more competent than, er, basically everyone. Also I have decided Artoo is the actual hero of the six movies out so far. Not much of me, although if he ever gets translation he might talk like me, or my computer-programmer friends.

Anakin: Other than joining in the theories about him no really having a mental illness, and my kind of avoiding the prequels and focusing on Clone Wars and after, my biggest headcanon for him is that the war is taking a huge toll on his psyche. Unless I have missed it, I have not inserted any of me in him.

Evelyn: Heh, she will eventually get my impatience and occasional OH MY GOD CAN I STOP BEING THE ONE TO DEAL WITH THIS attitude. I think she'll just pick up a lot of my personality either way. Lots of headcanon, by nature as being PC of an RPG with Choices. One of my biggest is, I think, that she kind of wishes she were Fereldan so she could have a better justification for finding mabari adorable/have better chances of filching one for snuggles.

Henry: Headcanon, I have kind of expanded on things that are in canon to that he sees to the heart of a matter--who a character is, sometimes--like when he just sees Mary Margaret as Snow White after getting the book, and in recent canon his position as [spoiler spoiler]. As for me, due to his canon love of comic books I will eventually have him discover tabletop RPGs through Milliways and he will get addicted.

Lois: Hah, oh boy. There is so much of me in her, and sadly that is somewhat justified by canon. (EG: we share a love of maple donuts/sugary baked goods). There are times that, minus geek references, her speaking cadences and mine are almost identical. As such, I end up modeling it somewhat on that. Headcanon is... a lot, but one of them is that Lois swears a lot more than is on the show, because of ratings etc. As it is she swears more than any other main character (in the light sort of way) so, y'know, I figure it extends.

Tavi: Sometimes there is a lot of me in him, sometimes there isn't. Sadly, when there is, it's more or less because it is canon and I picked him up because he and I just clicked really well. One that isn't quite is some of politics; he's reformer enough in canon that I could expand on it to include more of mine not explicitly in there (medical system that doesn't suck). Some of how he thinks isn't based so much on me as other MIT people close to me; I get how they think, having some of the same patterns if slower, so I can replicate it. I definitely based the way he taught himself so much as a kid on my early learning curve (mathematics especially), accelerated a smidge because I am not actually a genius.

One of my headcanons about him is actually to deliberately separate him from me/make him less, uh, Too Good by giving him zero comprehension of performing or visual arts (I have quite a lot of it). My decision on some of his tastes in food--like, say, chocolate--is a favorite headcanon as it is just lighthearted and definitely based on me.

Oddly, most of my favorite Aleran headcanons are actually about the past or the future of canon and not Tavi himself. I do headcanon that if Tavi did not have Kitai, and were capable of noticing women, he'd have a bit of a thing about redheads. Oh, also, about him and his descendants: that they have an innate connection to the land that is... a weird kind of awareness and reach of power that is not what it was when they had Alera to work with, but far more than it should be. I kind of like the Fisher King-ness of that.

[tlvop]

... >.>

It's not at all obvious that I like dogs, right?

[genarti]

There's actually not a lot I can think of for Enjolras. Obviously there are aspects that I share in there, but most of it is canonical or canon-extrapolation. Maybe his bleariness in the mornings -- I did it more to amuse myself with symbolism, but I sympathize, buddy. And tidy handwriting.

Cosette gets some, though not all, of my taste in food, and also gets an interest in science and botany (although filtered through a very different era of course).

Thor... hmm. I can't think of much; mostly I base my headcanon decisions for him on what I find the funniest. Maybe some food stuff, but I also base some of that on coming up with weird-to-me combinations... Oh, I know, I did have him find sprinkles on ice cream and donuts pointless and disappointing. "Maybe sugary wax tastes different to humans...?" he speculates.

Kazul hasn't had time to get a lot of headcanons about the little stuff yet. Her fondness for tea might count, and I definitely share that.

River is/was the character who got the most of me in that little stuff. A lot of my food tastes -- she dislikes coffee because I do (and at least one of my other characters at the time drank it like, well, Enjolras does now), she likes bubble tea and dumplings partly for legitimate character reasons but partly because I do, etc. I picked where she'd be sitting at any given moment by going "Okay, if I didn't care about looking weird and wasn't worried about balance, where might I sit? Under the table/on the booth back/into the rafters you go, River!" Etc.

Trowa doesn't have a lot of me in him, but I did give him my general genuine disinterest in lots of sugar.