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Productivity
I was awesomely productive this weekend. Got my car registered in PA, got my epic new license plate with the best default license plate number ever, mailed out all my packages, bought most of my gifts, wrote like 3000 words, did all my Sif tags...! I'm on the ball.
Sadly, I have to go in to work early on Monday and I'm terrified I'm going to be blamed for this latest mishap and I wish I could just live under a rock for the rest of my life.
So it's time for a meme! Since I never do these anymore.
Sadly, I have to go in to work early on Monday and I'm terrified I'm going to be blamed for this latest mishap and I wish I could just live under a rock for the rest of my life.
So it's time for a meme! Since I never do these anymore.
Pick a character I've written and I will explain the top five [or so] ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.
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/random icon tried to give you the same one as the last post! :( nooo
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You thought I was going to say Flynn, didn't you.
WELL YOU WERE WRONG.
Sif
2. I feel like Sif balances on a line between being feminine and rejecting femininity. She knows she's beautiful and she likes when people notice; she likes dressing up in gowns and doing her hair, and she enjoys attention. She wants to be seen as a woman. But there is a fire and an aggression in her that goes beyond what's commonplace in Asgardian ladies -- she likes fighting and challenging others, and she instinctively rejects and lashes out anytime someone tries to limit her and tell her what to do. She had a lot of people who told her, growing up, "You can't do that! You're a girl!" and that shaped the whole course of her life, and what became her goals. So at the same time she would be offended if you assumed that she must not be feminine because she's a warrior, but would also be offended if you assumed she must be feminine because she's female. :D
3. Sif had golden hair in her youth, and it was kind of a big deal; her beauty was famous. She's a harvest goddess in mythology and I tie that in with her hair to an extent, the richness and the vibrancy and the living lushness of it. Harvest was a thing she was born with, like Thor and thunder, but it's part of what she rejected -- being feminine, having this connection to earth and fertility, for the sake of more aggressive talents like swordfighting, and proving herself JUST AS CAPABLE AS A MAN!! After Loki jealously cut off her golden hair, it turned black, and she is now known exclusively as a goddess of war. She probably doesn't even have the earthy connection anymore, but even if she does, it would have been centuries since she used it for anything.
4. She's an extremely faithful friend, though she's easy to rile or challenge, even by accident -- she just easily forgives, too. Winning or losing isn't as important to her as playing the game well, but she chafes if she feels like she is being spared anything because of her gender. Fairness is very important to Sif, and so is courage and loyalty. When she thinks she's found someone or something that exemplifies fairness or courage or loyalty, she gives her faith completely, and she tries to bring those traits to everything she does. But betray her and that'll stay in her mind for a long time.
5. In Asgard, people tend to see her as 1) a woman and therefore she'll obviously eventually give up fighting to settle down with a nice man, or 2) a man because look who she hangs out with and what she does with her time, obviously she's not into men because she is more or less one herself, or 3) a challenge because she's a freak and an oddity and therefore let's see if I can get in her pants. She's a little afraid that she'll end up alone because she doesn't fit into everyone's boxes. She wants to be seen as an equal and treated with respect, but still appreciated as a woman, and she's had to fight so hard to avoid being typified that she doesn't have a lot of options. Thor seemingly in love and happy affects her more than she cares to admit, which leads to some sensitivity about him, and about Earth.
Loki
2. Loki is crafty and underhanded: that's what he's best at. He likes to manipulate situations and people to an extreme. This is always better than honesty! He doesn't like giving himself away, and partially because he doesn't want his motives to be suspect, since he's already pretty much automatically suspicious to anyone who knows him -- he's a trickster, after all. So when Thor stopped listening to him, and Loki was concerned, he genuinely thought the best way to handle it was to arrange for an attack that would be handled quickly so that Thor could overreact and Odin could see that he wasn't ready and put him in his place. If he'd just said that he didn't think Thor was ready, Thor would be pissed off, and Odin might think he wanted it for himself. So the best solution is to arrange for a lesson, right? WRONG. And that's why we don't teach lessons, Loki!
3. Loki complains about "sentiment" or other gooshy nonsense like five times in his two movies, and he's always called out as avoiding the truth and how he actually feels. So I always have him avoid things that are overly emotional. He eyerolls at declarations of love and he feels stifled by displays of affection (lust, sure, but just genuine affection? ew) and he would almost never admit to his true feelings about anything. So, just as a general practice, if he says something heartfelt and he's not in a super vulnerable place, it's probably a lie, or otherwise a deliberate attempt to manipulate.
4. Gestures don't impress him. This is part of the reason I think platitudes about things being better if he just gives in appeal to him, because he wants things to be better, but they don't mean anything to him. Thor letting him be king isn't the same thing as Loki winning his way to the throne. Thor doing something for the sake of being equal just makes Loki feel their inequality all the more -- because he didn't earn that, Thor deigned to give it to him. It just reinforces what Loki can't get on his own. Loki very strongly feels that it only counts in his favor if he's responsible for it on some level.
5. Pre-canon, I think Loki was at least comfortable with his life, rather than actively unhappy. He had everything he wanted, and a family that cared about him, and a good-natured relationship with Thor, and friends who were just as mean and bratty as he was. But his meddling brought it all down. Post-canon, I think Loki has realized that things have been screwed up completely, and that there's no way to go back to what he had before. The only way he can be happy again is by finding an alternative. Showing everyone they were wrong about him -- by kicking their asses and becoming lord over all of them -- is one way to do that. The alternative is to make everyone just as miserable as he is. Either way, he... wins?
Roxas
2. Roxas is an anomaly among Nobodies, but he does consider himself a Nobody. As such, he feels like humans are kind of alien creatures -- he doesn't understand them, and their impulses and emotions are mysterious to him -- he's never actually interacted with any of them before! -- even though he actually is very like them, because he does feel the way other Nobodies don't. But he has deep empathy for characters who had similar backgrounds: memory loss, or less-than-human created creatures, or mission-oriented to the point of obsession. I was amused to find him gravitating toward characters who were even more hollow than Nobodies, and then acting like their guide, more than he was gravitating toward humans and learning from them.
3. He can be super fluffy and sweet to people he cares for. He thinks about his friends all the time, and he takes strength in their support, and he'd die for them in a heartbeat. The "my friends are my power" thing that Sora says is very much true for Roxas -- and it's why his world crumbles in 358/2 Days when his friendships fall apart, and he realizes he can't trust even his best friends. But he's not fluffy and sweet all the time. He can also be super cold and untrusting, and downright mean. His behavior when he walked away from the Organization, and Axel? That was Roxas, too. When he feels betrayed or hurt, he can be cruel, using the full force of that hollow against the people who made him feel it.
4. Before the end when everything gets miserable and tragic, there were only two truly horrible things in Roxas's life (hahaha I say that like it wasn't all in the space of a year!). The first was the way that he felt early on, in that zombie time when he had no memories and no clue and he was empty. He doesn't ever want to go through that again, and so one of his biggest pings is memory loss. The second was the realization that everything he'd thought was true was not: the Organization, and Axel, had lied to and manipulated him his entire life. So his other biggest ping is lying. If you trigger either of those, you either get all of his sympathy, or zero of his sympathy. Those horrible things that shaped his very short life are very black and white to him: anything that involves lying or memory loss sucks, the end.
5. My particular Roxas, in Marina, was a very weird circumstance, because he had no memories of Xion, no memories of Sora, and was just generally in a very vulnerable state, after choosing to reject the Organization, but before he was captured and brainwashed by DiZ, so he was pretty unique. As a result, he was very much shaped by his experiences there: he already had a distrust of his former allies, and had chosen to break away from them, so he learned to be independent, and then stifled again when people tried to boss him around or treat him like a burden.
Now I want to play a deprogramming Roxas -- one that has been through Twilight Town and lived through its breakdown, but the remembering his real life is starting to surface through the Soratastic brainwashing.
BONUS: Roxas is distinct from Sora, and from Ven. He's much harsher than either of them, given the traumatizing way he grew up and the ambivalent people he grew up with, but even aside from that, he's also just kind of quieter and more reserved. He's more introspective and thoughtful, and not as impulsive or outgoing, and he's slower to make friends. I reasoned that out as I played him, so that's another thing I try to keep in mind.
Re: Sif
1.) So very much agreed. I'm sure Sif has made life very hard on herself in the past and that she still does sometimes; I love that she isn't afraid to smile, though, in spite of that.
2.) AGREED, and I really like this about her. I'm especially fond of -- I don't know. I feel like it's kind of a subtle trait, like -- something that could be explored more and be really interesting to explore, but I love how her femininity is not something that Sif lets consume her? You'd never feel like -- I think it goes back to the Wasp in Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Where I love that Sif's concern about her femininity feels organic, and not something that anyone is trying to Make A Statement about? There is commentary to it, but not that obnoxious supercilious "badass" Action Girl who just needs loooove to melt her into a purring kitten! If this makes any sense at all.
I love Sif. :(
3.) This is probably my favorite answer you gave, and I am soooo stealing that for headcanon.
4.) Agreed, and this is one of the many reasons why Loki will never be her bestie. I think you probably can't get to where Sif is at the cost she did without developing a long memory of the people who helped you and the people who tried to step on you. /random speculation
5. ldjgldkjfg this depresses me so much. :( IT'S OKAY SIF. HE LOVES YOU..... (Also, yet again agreed.)
Re: Loki
1.) Ouch.
Also, I love that he is literally god of gay sex and unmanliness.I do love this inherent contradiction here. Poor damaged bb, he doesn't even want what he wants half the time.2.) "That's why we don't teach lessons, Loki!" is my favorite anything, ever (how is it not part of the Arrested Avengers meme!), and also so true. Honesty makes Loki break out in hives.
3.) Especially honesty about FEEEEELINGS. /pets him
4.) :|a This one is especially interesting. And, of course, I agree! Because I agree with you about everything and have no thoughts of my own that you didn't apparently have first. :(
5.) /absorbabsorb sob. Winning indeed.
This is why Loki wants someone else to take the reins, isn't it? He just can't stop making things worse, as long as he has the freedom to do so.
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Orihime
1. Orihime thrives on people and family and friends. Take her away from all the people she cares about and she will be miserable for a while, but she will make new friends almost immediately, and shelve the misery. The worst thing, for Orihime, would be somewhere she is completely alone with her own thoughts.
2. Orihime's courage is in struggling through fear. Her bravery is a microcosm of the moment when she saw Ichigo with the Hollow mask, and she had a terrified flashback to when her brother's Hollow attacked her, and then she forced herself to ignore that and just focus on him. She's afraid of hurting people and of getting hurt, and that fear never fades, and so sometimes she decides that passive is a better route than fighting, to minimize hurt: but when she fights, it's because it's just that important, and her fear is not.
3. Orihime can't hold a grudge ever. Within the space of like 24 hours Ulquiorra incited her to violence, something that is nearly impossible, and then murdered Ichigo... and still her heart broke a little when he died. Orihime's grudges last almost precisely as long as the offense. She might be furious at you while you're being horrible, but the moment you're not, Orihime is just mildly troubled by your behavior and will otherwise be happy to convince herself you've turned over a new leaf and give you a second chance.
4. Orihime is her own worst critic. She takes every negative thought and feeling she has and blows it up into something huge: her fear, her jealousy, her inexperience in combat, things that are totally normal and human, and she tells herself that she is a horrible friend and useless. She'd have to be in a really desperate place to let anyone see it, but it would be hard for someone to lash out at Orihime more than she already secretly does.
5. Orihime's feelings for Ichigo are on multiple levels. She admires him, as a person, for being brave and reliable; he was there when her brother died, and she fixated on him a little after that because she needed someone; he also represents, in a way, her ideal life, surrounded by family he is fiercely protective of, caring and cool. It's so easy to think, if she had a family with Ichigo, he would never let any of them be hurt, and he would take care of them. Whether or not Orihime falls in love with someone else, her feelings for Ichigo are as much about herself and her experiences and her desires as they are about him: he's a symbol of the life she wants.
He does also make great srs bizns faces, though.