Insights and headcanons
Jul. 26th, 2014 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantI'm craving fandom talk. Tell me something about the characters you're fannishly in love with right now.
You can tell me anything you want, but if you need inspiration, here are some prompts.
1. If your two characters got together for a long-term relationship, what would they fight about? What would be the points of tension in that relationship? What would be the things they couldn't even talk about?
2. What do your characters hate about themselves? What do they wish they could change?
3. What do they think they're the world's best at? Are they right about that?
4. Old standby: Can they cook?
5. What do they like to do when they need to get out of their heads a little bit?
6. If they got technomagically regressed to childhood, who would be the best babysitter for them?
7. Old standby #2: Can they sing?
You can tell me anything you want, but if you need inspiration, here are some prompts.
1. If your two characters got together for a long-term relationship, what would they fight about? What would be the points of tension in that relationship? What would be the things they couldn't even talk about?
2. What do your characters hate about themselves? What do they wish they could change?
3. What do they think they're the world's best at? Are they right about that?
4. Old standby: Can they cook?
5. What do they like to do when they need to get out of their heads a little bit?
6. If they got technomagically regressed to childhood, who would be the best babysitter for them?
7. Old standby #2: Can they sing?
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 09:01 pm (UTC)I don't think Carlos can cook particularly well, though he can certainly survive as an adult on his own. In my headcanon Cecil loves to cook, and it's one of the ways he flirts with Carlos -- cooking him beautiful food.
Cecil can definitely sing, and when he does, it's gorgeous, just like his speaking voice. Carlos I think probably can't -- or at least, he thinks he can't -- though he can carry a tune, the timbre of his voice isn't suited to singing, so he's shy about it.
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:23 pm (UTC)And it would be kind of hilarious to invert our usual sense of what's sexually permissible. In Night Vale, kids learn about penetration in third-grade health class, but holding hands is outré?
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 09:42 pm (UTC)4. He can cook. Nothing fancy, but given some edible plants, small game, a cookpot and a fire he can put together something nutritious that tastes as good as possible for the available ingredients. Nobody's going to starve on his watch, as long as he's got something to work with.
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:06 pm (UTC)Sherlock -- I feel like I've written this before, so sorry if it's repetitive -- Sherlock would probably say, "Morons cook every day. How difficult could it be?" and then ruin dinner by
- carrying out experiments on it ("Hm. Teaspoon gingerroot, delicious. Quarter-cup gingerroot, inedible. It makes no sense." ... except with non-American kitchen measures),
- getting distracted and burning things,
- or having an attitude that precise measuring and timing are for peons and he's above all that. And that if a lax attitude toward recipes works out OK with stew, it should also be fine with angel food cake.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 09:43 pm (UTC)I don't think either one of them can cook, precisely, but Varel can probably skin and gut a rabbit and roast it over an open fire, if necessary.
Huh, this was interesting, because some of the questions are kinda sideways to the way I think about the characters, and others are so very relevant that answering them would feel like story spoilers. Which I don't imagine you care about :) but apparently I do! It was nice, though, getting to think about them in different ways.
No, they can't sing. Varel can join in a soldiers' tune of an evening, but wouldn't sing alone; I don't think Elyon has ever had either reason or inclination to sing. I don't think either one of them would be bad at it, with time and training, but not particularly good at it, either. Small-time choir stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:09 pm (UTC)Varel can join in a soldiers' tune of an evening, but wouldn't sing alone; I don't think Elyon has ever had either reason or inclination to sing.
Within their cultures, are there art forms that ordinary people (or whatever kind of people these characters are) would be expected to be able to do competently?
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:10 am (UTC)Which is a big digression from your actual question, sorry! Hmm. Varel knows all the ordinary dances the country people do, and he's quite good at them, being strong and fast and well-coordinated in his movements. Elyon never learned to dance, but he can copy and illuminate a manuscript page with reasonable skill.
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:04 pm (UTC)2/3. Hannibal justifies his cannibalism by only killing those who "deserve it" for being rude. Will, meanwhile, just keeps giving more than what he can afford to the world because he wants to leave it better than he'd found it. One seems to love and trust himself implicitly for the same reasons that the other seems to despise himself.
4. Uh, yes, as attested to by the man who complimented the chef after taking a bite of his own leg.
5. Get into other people's heads and make them do their bidding.
6. I wouldn't wish that job on anyone, as they'll inevitably end up paying for it later on in some unfathomably creative but equally cruel way.
7. Don't think there's anything Hannibal can't do, really.
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 12:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 03:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:22 pm (UTC)I had the impression that SPN was still a living fandom -- was I wrong about that? Why wouldn't people be interested in the answers?
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/26/14 10:54 pm (UTC)1. They would absolutely fight about what movies to see (Duncs likes horror; Seabs is more of a comedy, action-adventure kind of guy), how much cheating on their diets during the season is allowable, whether Brad Paisley counts as acceptable country music, plus the usual stuff like chores and relatives and whatnot. They wouldn't fight very often, though, because Seabs is in the habit of suggesting movies he thinks Duncs will go for, even if they aren't horror and Duncs mostly has him trained to eat a diet not entirely comprised of nachos.
Probably the biggest point of tension would be over the possibility of Seabs being traded or allowed to seek a new team while Duncs is still under contract to the Hawks.
3. Following on from there, while they can both reasonably call themselves top-tier D-men, Duncs has a legitimate stake in the best-in-the-world, currently-active conversation. He's just won his second Norris trophy in five years, has two Stanley Cup rings and two Olympic golds - and is right in the middle of his prime D-man years. Seabs is also really good, but just enough more prone to making stupid mistakes that he's probably never going to be in the Norris conversation. Duncs would claim that's not fair, though.
4. They can both cook - Seabs is better at the party appetizer spread type stuff (nachos, seven layer dip, crock-pot meatballs, etc) and desserts, while Duncs has a better grasp on how to churn out regular servings of proteins, veggies and carbs and not let it get boring, but they can both handle breakfast and grilling. And they could (and have) cooked pasta while nearly asleep.
5. For getting out of his head purposes, Duncs will take, variously: being in the middle of a crowd of people, all tuned into the music, at a show for a band he loves; driving in the country, windows down, going fast enough he can only concentrate on the next curve; getting immersed in water, preferably not a pool, and letting the water block out everything else; exercising his way into a zone. Seabs is more of a concentrate on other living things guy: play with the dogs, help one of his teammates solve a problem, find a fundraiser to help out with or volunteer effort to join.
6. If they both got regressed, probably their captain, Jonathan Toews, would end up looking after them - he'd feel like he had a responsibility to Seabs, since Seabs took him in when he was a rookie and generally looks out for him, and whence goes Seabs, so goes Duncs. Whether or not he'd be the actual best choice is another thing entirely, though. Not that it matters too much, since, to a certain extent, it would probably be a team babysitting gig, as long as they weren't on the road for games.
7. Neither of them is a great singer - Seabs sings along to the radio and is occasionally prone to whistling, while Duncs is more of an in the shower/in the crowd at a concert kind of guy (though if you combine karaoke with enough alcohol, he'll sometimes end up on stage) - but they're not so bad they shouldn't ever even try, either.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:17 pm (UTC)Also: now I'm craving crockpot meatballs. Hmph.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:49 pm (UTC)ETA: And I can't really be sorry about the meatballs. Though now you've maybe made me want some.
Captain America
Date: 7/27/14 01:34 am (UTC)2. Steve hates being so goddamn famous. It keeps him from being properly useful.
3. OTOH he's good at standing up for people. He's got a lot to say about women in the military, mostly on the theme of how men in the military need to get over themselves.
4. Steve can make food. And he will damn well eat it. No matter what. (He eats out a lot.)
5. He's still working this out. He used to get rat-arsed on one beer and he misses that badly.
6. Sam, because he has medical training, and baby Steve is pretty sickly. :(
7. Steve sings all the time! If nobody can hear him. The others find it adorable and piss him off with condescension. He does hum around Sam, though, and Sam doesn't give him the business, so he'll start singing around Sam without realizing, and then Sam will join in, and it will be nice.
Re: Captain America
Date: 7/27/14 03:23 am (UTC)Re: Captain America
Date: 7/27/14 07:52 am (UTC)Re: Captain America
Date: 7/27/14 02:03 pm (UTC)(I really need a Sam icon. And a Steve/Sam icon. Really I need to do a CA:TWS icon overhaul.)
Re: Captain America
Date: 7/27/14 02:35 pm (UTC)Re: Captain America
Date: 7/27/14 06:21 pm (UTC)I once read a copy of Farm Wife magazine from 1918. There was a four-page advertising spread for a variety of chicken feed that was switching over from fabric bags to clear heavy plastic ones.
I know from talking to my mother that fabric feed bags were what her mother made the children's pajamas out of -- Mom and her sister and brother used to be allowed to go out to the truck and pick out their bags, and one of the great annoyances of her childhood was when the prettiest fabric was on the bag at the bottom of the pile! -- so the switch was going to have a significant effect on the family. And this four-page spread had two instructional articles: one on how to re-use the heavy plastic covers to weatherproof your windows for the winter, and the other on how to sew them together to make a waterproof cover for your tractor.
So, yeah, Steve would be appalled to see how many broken earbuds I throw away every year.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 04:10 am (UTC)He wants to move up in class and has taught himself to read and fight, but now he kind of doesn't have a plan past that? Like, got from so poor he's starving to elite soldier then... what? Stick with his friends and fight until he dies? Not knowing bothers him a little bit, but he can't imagine what else there could be.
Dr. Julia Ogden from Murdoch Mysteries. She broke into the medical profession in the 1890s, which she could do because her family has a pretty impressive amount of money, and she's pretty aware of being not only the only women in a man's world (she's a coroner so mostly works with male police and doctors), but being the only rich girl surrounded by working class man. So she has this little laugh that she does when people are making her uncomfortable? Like she's playing at confusion, almost, or playing harmlessness? But mostly it comes across as a grimace?
Which isn't the soul of her character, it's just a tick I really like. The soul of her character is the Joy of Science. She loves her job, she loves science, she loves talking about her job and science. She will gleefully hold up bits of intestines and tell you why they're interesting, and get off on long tangents about medical history or the latest research, often while at dinner, or out dancing. She's where she is partly out of pure cussedness, to show her family and prove she could, but mostly she's there because she really, really loves it.
Dr. Ogden and Porthos... would probably actually be a good match. They'd finally both find people who like casual sex, fighting crime, and gore.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/28/14 06:50 am (UTC)Murdoch Mysteries is good too, if you're into steampunky Victorian detective series.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 08:33 am (UTC)616 Steve/Tony are in a weird place as far as long-term relationships go because they're basically in one except for the actual romantic involvement -- which is of course setting aside Earth-3490, the universe where they actually are romantically involved and that averted the Marvel Civil War. Oh, canon. But seriously -- they've been good friends, partners, teammates, and housemates for approximately ten years, canon time. They're not going to be surprising each other with sudden new personality facets or anything. So I think that, were they to become involved, it would be pretty much the same but with added makeouts in the periods when they're not trying to kill each other.
In a way it's kind of a shame that they're superheroes, because when it comes to the small stuff (okay, the smaller stuff) they'd do a great job there. They know how to live with each other. They can deal with each other's day-to-day issues. Tony knows what kind of bagels Steve likes. Steve probably doesn't really mind that Tony made him identify himself to the house security system as "Captain Handsome." And so on. The problem comes when they have to make giant earthshaking decisions, because Steve is the ultimate idealist with the world's biggest stubborn streak and Tony the pragmatist and it really didn't end well during Civil War and it looks like it's really not going to end well for them now that the Earth is being threatened and they have to decide whether to build and use a planet-killing weapon to fight the incursions of other Earths. Yeah. To be fair, I imagine this would be difficult for many relationships to weather.
In my head, they don't talk about Civil War. They can't. Not just because Tony can't personally remember it anymore. But neither of them are ever going to change their minds, because they both think they were right, and it's... well, it's not worth it, and Tony can't even remember now that he believed that, and Steve wasn't alive when he confessed it. They are also probably not going to be able to talk about memory loss after current canon resolves and somehow they become friends again. They don't disagree well, they really don't. It's probably pretty rough going, but when they are good they are excellent for each other. Honest.
(I really love 616 Tony. I wish someone had told me how different he was from the MCU version. Not that RDJ isn't awesome, but oh God 616 Tony. He hates himself so much but he loves everyone else and he loves the team and he does the wrong things for the right reasons and the angst is glorious and clearly he needs Steve to balance him and help him bring himself out of his head, just as much as Steve needs Tony to shake him up and help him see the shades of gray in things.)
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:29 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's much more difficult than "You never take my side when your mother says those insulting things"!
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 09:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/28/14 05:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 01:55 pm (UTC)1. If the CA:TWS foursome (Steve, Natasha, Sam, Bucky) got together long-term, I think a lot of the tension would come from different people's PTSD interacting in unexpected ways. On the other hand, this is also a major bonding point; all of them have traumatic histories, in varying ways and to varying degrees, and they all are willing to cut each other slack re: unexpected emotional reactions.
Who talks to whom about what is a complex, ever-changing system. Steve and Bucky, much as they love each other, do not handle each other's self-doubt well at all. Most frequent confidants for really messy stuff: Bucky talks to Natasha or Sam, Natasha talks to Steve or Sam, Steve talks to Sam...
Sam ends up being a sympathetic ear and/or mediator a lot. Probably Steve and/or Natasha takes it as a personal mission to make sure Sam is also getting listened to and taken care of.
2. Bucky hates the Winter Soldier! A lot.
Steve hates his (perceived) failures - to save people, to see things coming, to act (in emotional matters) instead of waiting.
Natasha doesn't generally waste her energy on hating herself; if she wants to change something, she changes it. She does have some self-esteem issues around seeing herself as infinitely malleable, having no strong center. (I think she's wrong about that, and so does Steve. But these are not things you can fix for someone.)
Sam tries to have healthier coping mechanisms than hating himself, and mostly succeeds. He gets impatient with himself when he runs out of energy for taking care of other people, though, or his own trauma-reactions flare up. He wants to always be competent and caring, even as he knows that's not possible.
5. Steve is very physical. We see that in the movies - punching bags, running, the way he throws himself into fights. I think he likes to spar a lot, especially with Natasha; they challenge each other and thoroughly enjoy it. I bet if Natasha got him into some kind of energetic partnered-dance style, he'd love it. So would Bucky. In fact, dance OT4! They'd be glorious.
Steve also sketches everything in sight, especially his partners. Bucky likes to sit quietly somewhere near where Steve is sketching; it's familiar and homey and makes him feel more like himself.
Natasha, like Steve, gets out of her head by exercising her body. Dance, gymnastics, martial arts, sparring. Dancing with a partner she trusts, who can keep up with her physically, is like a religious experience for her. She and Bucky are spectacular once they get going.
Sam is all about music. He's got a huge and varied collection, and he is delighted to provide recommendations to his pop-culture-starved partners. He'll put on a playlist and just zone out for a while. He also finds running relaxing, when he's not trying to keep up with a supersoldier.
And... that is probably enough character babbling for now. :D Mass Effect characters will have to wait for another time.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:51 pm (UTC)I like your thoughts on the PTSD, too. I do worry about Sam sometimes -- he's the most mature and functional person in the MCU universe, and I want him to have people taking care of him, too.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 02:41 pm (UTC)1. They would fight about a lot of things, but mostly about Steve getting into brawls in the alleys, AGAIN. Also, sadly, about whether they should give each other up and marry some nice ladies.
2. Steve really, really, really doesn't like being sickly and weak. Bucky is pretty happy with himself, really, but he also wishes Steve wasn't sickly.
3. Bucky thinks he's the world's best at loving Steve, and he's correct.
4. They can both do magic with cabbage and potatoes. But give them anything else and they're more than a little flummoxed.
5. Bucky likes to go drinking and dancing. Steve...actually enjoys the brawling, but he can't admit that to Bucky, because Bucky would look DISAPPOINTED.
6. Professor X. Because he's the best babysitter for literally everyone ever.
7. Bucky has a fine baritone and loves to sing jazz standards. Steve can't get his breath enough to sing, really.
(no subject)
Date: 7/27/14 06:53 pm (UTC)Aww, Professor X and de-aged Avengers! Awws all around!
(no subject)
Date: 7/28/14 04:15 am (UTC)2. He wishes he could be better. Just better, as he sees it. More tolerant, less prone to anger, more capable.
3. ...Kissing. Yes.
4. When it's just him, which is most of the time, he doesn't cook. He finds it too depressing. when he's had people over and wants to make something nice, he tries to do more than he can handle and tends to spill drinks and burn things.
5. Go out to a pub where he doesn't know anyone, watch whatever sport is on the screen, and drop in on Sherlock if he's feeling particularly brave.
6. Sherlock and John because Lestrade doesn't really have other friends and Sherlock would be surprisingly gentle and John would make sure he didn't do anything stupid.
7. Badly. He really gives it a go, though.
(no subject)
Date: 7/30/14 01:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/28/14 10:28 pm (UTC)6. If they got technomagically regressed to childhood, who would be the best babysitter for them?
I've been reading a bunch of old and new SGA fic lately.
I figure if John was a kid, Ronon would be the best babysitter. Ronon would let him run around without worrying all the time that he'd get hurt. He'd also teach him cool survival things and ways to tire him out so he's less of a whirlwind. He'd also feed him a lot, so maybe John would be less skinny when he grew up again, if the
magicAncient tech worked that way.If Rodney was a kid, I'd want Radek to take care of him. He'd make sure that the other scientists supervised his eating schedule, and then he'd take over his education. Little Rodney would love all the computers - they'd make him feel smart and important. The rest of his scientists would dote on him, so he wouldn't feel as lonely as the first time he was a kid.
(no subject)
Date: 7/30/14 01:35 am (UTC)