#theggning

Oh gladly! Here’s a link to installment one of my Danse headcanons!

Danse headcanons 2, electric boogaloo:

I want to give him a harmonica. I see everyone’s guitar Danse headcanons and those are valid, those are totally fair. But I cannot stop imagining the absolute power of sad harmonica tunes coming from the bunker post-BB. Like he doesn’t even have to be good at it I just want him to have one.

On the BB topic, if you do Blind Betrayal I think it makes sense that Danse wants to stay at the bunker. He needs some time alone to sort himself. Also I think it serves as self-punishment, staying there isolated when he’s truly a very social person. In the heat of the moment, with his own life on the line, sure he defended himself and made really good points about why he shouldn’t be executed— but that doesn’t mean he won’t have trouble accepting himself. Also, if sole invited him to the Minutemen right away he’d be concerned. They might be saying it just because he’s their friend, or he might still be unsure if he’s SAFE to be around other people. He’s going to need some time to feel confident about who he is again. And that’s totally valid. Don’t get me wrong. I 100% support Minuteman Danse, but he needs time to heal first.

After they were put on separate squads, Danse and Cutler met up once a week (when possible) and had drinks. The last time Danse saw Cutler alive was one of these times. :)

I don’t headcanon M7-97 as a courser. I agree with several that he was probably a maintenance worker, which pinpoints his knack for mechanics and tinkering.

Danse having a sweet little family and making “battle plans” for how they’re going to tackle their chores as a team. Just imagine him with a chalk board and like two kiddos very seriously listening to their “mission briefing.”

Ticklish :)

Becomes less distrustful of robots once he’s been out of the BOS for a while. Treats Codsworth nicer, Takahashi, etc.

I headcanon that he doesn’t have tattoos, boring me. I think he doesn’t mind them on others and even appreciates them, but doesn’t want any for himself.

Sole and Haylen work together to find him the X-01 power armor and it isn’t in the best condition but he is so grateful and working on it, almost from scratch, gives him a new sense of direction and purpose after BB.

I think he and Sturges have the mechanical/technical know how to fix an old car or maybe a motorcycle. I just want him to drive. I think it’d be hot and he’d like it. I’m a simple woman.

In my canon he and my sole adopt a daughter and he picks out her name. It’s Rachel, he names her after Haylen (who I headcanon as being named Rachel).

He doesn’t cry when Shaun calls him dad for the first time. There’s just something in both of his eyes.

I feel like I could make up another hundred headcanons for my man, but I’ll stop there for now. Always glad to come up with more, on specific topics or wherever.

Okay, so, let’s start with the ~*~obvious~*~

Nick Valentine - I love. Everything about him. Just everything. From his battered trench, his whole Dick Tracy vibe, even his tendency to sit down whenever I’m anywhere around a seat for more than sixty seconds. I love how he takes care of his assistant, I love how he runs on compassion and ghosts of the past. The way he is kind to Danse (who starts out hating him) and the way he checks in on Sole. Like Varric, he’s my OC’s best friend (who may or may not be a little in love with them).

A headcanon: I have a fic WIP somewhere that Nick and Sole (Evie) actually met pre-war. I went with the canon background, mostly, that Evie was a lawyer. And most lawyers I know know of a few cops-- some even have favorites. I like the idea that Evie, Nate, and Nick sort of knew each other from working on a case (possibly the Winter case?), and that Evie helped introduce Nick to Jenny. Evie’s forgotten a lot-- PTSD and the trauma of it’s been 200 years can result in some memory loss, so she doesn’t remember much until she’s looking at old wedding photos and sees the real Nick’s face in the guest crowd. Meanwhile, Nick remembers clearly and hasn’t said anything because talk about complicated.

***

Father - I love a good villain. I also love a sympathetic villain. Shaun was stolen and raised, basically indoctrinated. The face off between him and his parent is just *chef’s kiss.* (I’m an angst gremlin, what can I say)

A headcanon: I think that Father struggled with the decision to let Evie out of cryo. And I think that while he struggled, he had kid!Shaun created, out of some desire to help her. That urge is only made stronger as he keeps tabs on her, noting her desperation to hunt down her son. To hunt him down. He can’t give her the years between them back, but he can give her something to lavish her love on. 

***

We all know I love Danse unreasonably, so, let’s skip him and go for someone else. 

Hancock - I love this sad ghoul man. Maybe not as much as @asaara-writes, but I love how complicated he is. He’s got a lot of self-hatred locked away, hidden behind chems and alcohol and snappy snark. I don’t think Hancock views himself as a good guy or a bad guy. He’s just someone trying to feel something other than the shit that goes on in the Wasteland, trying to make his way through his own mistakes. He can be ruthless, has no issues getting his hands bloody, and still manages to care about Sole and the crew despite his instinct to keep that arm’s length distance. 

Hahah yes! These are the ones I adopted/thought about. Thank you for letting me gush about it :3

1. I have definitely adopted the hc of Mac having wavy/curly hair (see clickbait-cowboy's art on him. I was sold), but it's mainly straighter because it's cut short. Because of this, he wears his hat waaay more the longer his hair gets, cause he's embarrassed that the length makes him look younger.

2. He isn't the absolute worst cook in the world. He knows how to make a few things really really well, but they're mainly staples. He really could use some help with spices. Mac makes dishes that stick to the ribs and can last a long while between meals. (I'll indulge a little here, but Mac really learns a lot from Em, but while he makes a few meals here and there for his family, he lets Em cook for them because he knows she likes to.)

3. This one is mine, but I always thought of Mac being a little more naturally cold. Due to him smoking and drinking so young, and growing up in a cooler climate in Lamplight, his circulation is a little worse than others. Because of this, it's why he's so bundled up even during the warmer months. He's finally warm when everyone is sweating, and he sleeps closer to the fire than most people. Winter bothers him a lot (give me seasons, dammit), and he hates the season.

4. My favorite moment with Mac is when he gets so freaked out about aliens at Cabot House. I bring him along every time. (Again, gonna indulge, but I really like to think that Em teases him about it for a little bit, and then feels really bad once she sees he's like, legit freaked) Because of the whole paranormal thing, it really makes sense as to why he likes when the Sole Survivor kills Lorenzo. He's afraid of what he can't quite understand to me, and if there's a way to get rid of it, he's gonna want that.

5. There are a lot of hcs that Mac is looking for a cure for a dead son, or that he's lying to himself and I say NO. Not because it's a terrible thing to think, or that I'm a hopeless romantic that loves family moments, but Mac does deserve Duncan. I really think he's a good dad, because he knows the life he had wasn't what he would ever want for his son. He loves his boy so much, I feel, and when they're finally reunited, he does everything he can to be around physically for him. He wants Dunc to feel like his dad is always there for him, and because of this, he takes on way fewer jobs as a merc, and gets really nervous about a babysitter, even if it's a good friend. I think the first few times, he's worrying more about his son than what he's supposed to be doing/participating in.

HEY SIREA WRITE ABOUT CHARACTER FLAWS

Give your characters flaws.

Create post.

okok no but for real, seriously, if you focus on making any one of your characters as unproblematic as possible, 9 out of 10 members of your audience will fucking hate them. That isn’t how real human beings act or are when they’re out in the world, and especially not when they’re under duress -- which your characters should be, since stories cannot exist without conflict. If you’re lucky, your audience will walk away from your story thinking that your main character was an annoying, pretentious asshole. Chances are, though, they’ll walk away thinking that you, the author, are an annoying, pretentious asshole who cared more about grasping for cheap “woke” points rather than telling a compelling story with compelling characters and dialogue.

On the flipside of things, one thing that you should never do is sit down with a list of flaws in an attempt to meet some kind of arbitrary quota. When crafting a character, you put yourself (and the character) at a detriment by going, “Okay, I need five positive traits and five negative ones.” Don’t do that. We’ve already spoken about how authors shouldn’t put things in their stories just because they think stories should have XYZ thing -- everything should have a reason and purpose for existing within the confines of the story, including character flaws.

I tend to think of character flaws as consequences or effects. When you’re crafting a character’s backstory, it’s important to take into consideration what effect certain aspects of their lives would have on them and how those events would manifest as behavior later in life. The fun part is that you can have both a positive effect and a negative effect stemming from the same event.

Let’s take Juli Kidman as an example. She had an abusive/neglectful family life growing up. A negative effect of that was that it made her susceptible to the cult-like atmosphere of Mobius as an organization in her never-ending need for belonging and validation. A positive effect of that was that she was able to sympathize with Sebastian losing his own family, which then made her rethink her allegiance to Mobius.

Any character flaw that you write should be something that your character either A. sees as a virtue or B. purposefully ignores. In Juli’s case, she fell into the category of B. She purposefully ignored her eagerness to work within the oppressive cult-like environment of Mobius, because she wanted so badly for a place to belong. Character flaws like drug addictions typically fall into this category, as well. "I can stop whenever I want” is a common mindset for a drug addict, and it’s an example of a character purposefully ignoring their flaw.

In terms of of A. seeing a flaw as a virtue, let’s keep using The Evil Within as an example and look at Sebastian. As a result of losing his daughter and his wife one right after the other, Sebastian becomes an emotionally closed off, paranoid, neurotic conspiracy theorist. He alienates the people closest to him and even puts his own job at risk at one point, but he honestly 100% feels he’s right to do so. He sees his own neurotic paranoia as a virtue to help him find his missing wife and get to the bottom of a massive conspiracy within the Krimson PD. He knows that he’s breaking rules and pushing people away, but for him it’s a means to a justified end. He can’t see how much he’s hurting others, because in his mind, he’s helping.

There does also exist a C-type flaw -- one that the character is aware of, knows is a problem, but doesn’t know how to stop. Maybe they don’t want to stop their flawed behavior or mindset because it’s a form of defense mechanism. However, these types of flaws are less common and more difficult to write because they frequently act as distractions away from the main conflict of the story. If you’re writing an epic fantasy story about going on a big journey to save the world, and your protagonist is a berserker who hates the fact that they hurt innocent people when they berserk, then that becomes a secondary problem that requires near-constant attention during and after every fight. It detracts from the main conflict, and to a certain extent, your story almost becomes a dual-conflict narrative -- it’s simultaneously man vs man and man vs self. This isn’t to say that this can’t be done well; Xenogears does this very well. It’s just a lot harder.

This can happen in reverse, too, when you’re character building. If you’re not starting with a character’s backstory, but you as an author have a general idea of, “I want to write about a character who’s smart and brave, but they’re a little awkward in social situations” it’s always beneficial to determine why the character is awkward in social situations. Were they sheltered and/or bullied as a child? Did they undergo some early trauma that caused them to grow up too fast? Are they an orphan who never learned how to socialize with people in a normal setting? Did they grow up in a small town with very rigid social norms that might not actually be normal in the greater world? Their backstory will develop from there, making your character feel more fleshed-out as a result.

Once you know why a character has a specific flaw, then determine how it manifests and what sort of attitude the character has towards it -- if it’s an A-type, a B-type, or a C-type flaw (if the story calls for a C-type). Once you have that squared away, your character interactions will start writing themselves. Conflicts will develop on their own. Stories start and finish with character flaws.

Giving your characters flaws doesn’t make them into abusers. It makes them human.

I don’t understand anyone lusting for Vulpes because he never has a head for longer than two minutes when I see him.

A commission I did for @theggning. Their beloved dorkchildren OCs, Fianna and Doseki, both of whom where a lot of fun to draw, especially Fianna! I like to think she smells adventure in the air! :D

WHY CAN’T I KISS THE ROBOT, BETHESDA?! WHY!?