#characterisation notes

[milliondollarnooboo]

Housekeeping 🧹

Here's more context and characterisation notes to address potential plot holes or uncharacteristic behaviours in the story thus far. Ngl some of these got more thought than others.

At the moment I'm telling the story from the Pleasants' POV because they're the ones I identify with more, but as I get to know the others my writing will reflect that. May do another housekeeping post later on when I develop more of the plot.

Anyway,

Pleasant Family Dynamics:

The girls don't hate each other in this universe. Given that they're about 23/24 (about 1 year post university) now, they've likely outgrown their petty teenage rivalry and put aside their differences. They're not flowery besties but they do have a solid bond as sisters and no inherent malice towards each other. Growing up with a politically ambitious mother like Mary Sue and a passive, emotionally absent father like Daniel leaves you with few other allies. And in this story, you need allies to survive.

Daniel and Mary Sue's relationship is a shell of what it could be. As Mary Sue grew in her career, she lost the ability to truly connect with Daniel. So used to performing that when they interact he feels like she's putting on a show. She doesn't mean to be this way - she genuinely thinks everything is okay between them. She does love him in her own way. Daniel is emotionally checked out because he feels like a failure next to his wife, and the emotional dissonance doesn't help. He's seeking love elsewhere - currently from a woman who seems to think of him as the hero that he's not. He spent so much time dissociating from his home life that he forgot to have a relationship with his daughters and now he has no idea who they are. Angela politely tolerates him and Lilith ignores him. He can see that they don't think of him as their parent.

Mary Sue loves her girls and wants to set up the best futures for them. Subconsciously she associates this meticulous planning with expressing maternal affection. Think: Bree Van Der Kamp. But with the edge and flourish of a political beast. Angela appreciates their mother's efforts and feels obligated to respond with compliance. She doesn't feel stifled *most* of the time since she's been trained for this sort of life. Lilith has a more strained relationship with Mary Sue, and would rather *not* be controlled so much. But she values stability, so she will rebel in a calculated way. Does not actually like her mother but doesn't hate her. Cannot be bothered to fight her all the time so she prefers to ignore her or make herself scarce to avoid confrontation.

Motivations for Agreeing to the Alliance:

Malcom Landgraab:

Business is changing in Pleasantview (and Bluewater Village, by extension). Malcom is losing his edge against competitors because they're all starting to catch up. He needs some way of elevating his public image, and for the first time he considers an emotionally charged approach - after all, who doesn't want to keep supporting the rich CEO with Pleasantview's Sweetheart for a wife? That's why Angela is the perfect public match.

Malcolm says yes simply because it makes sense from a business standpoint. He'll worry about the emotions later, if at all.

Alexander Goth:

Alexander carries the weight of Mortimer’s shadow. He wants to revolutionise the legacy handed down to him without unravelling the centuries of work put into it by the ones before him.

Though utterly repulsed by the *idea* of an arranged marriage, he does see some merit to it. In all honesty he's not completely sold on the idea yet. There's still room to back out. But he wants to see where this goes.

Mary Sue presents Lilith as someone who doesn't *need him*, and this intrigues him. Having seen the disaster that was Dina Caliente and how she nearly ran their family to the ground, Alexander wants an ally not a household enemy. He's preparing to step out of Mortimer’s looming shadow, and Lilith might be the type of partner who won’t interfere with his autonomy.

The reality is that the Goth family, though respected, is on the edge of becoming “ancient news.” Though Alexander doesn't personally care what the public thinks, he feels a greater sense of duty as the heir to do what it takes to sustain their family name. This marriage positions them as forward-facing again.

He agrees, not because he’s convinced of love or out of obedience, but because he senses this could be a turning point. A way to step into his own era.

Angela Pleasant:

Following years after her first real heartbreak, the decision is a shift from romantic idealism to strategic realism. Her motivation is multifaceted and shaped by personal experience, family expectation, and emotional evolution.

It's not that she doesn't see what's happening. Angela has always been close to Mary Sue’s ambition, even if she doesn’t always agree with it. As Pleasantview's Sweetheart, she understands what this marriage does for her family’s legacy and her own future.

When Dustin left for the army, Angela realised that she preferred to be on equal standing with her partner. At least that way he'd be less likely to get intimidated and abandon her. In some ways she felt that's what happened to her parents marriage.

Malcolm Landgraab doesn’t need saving. He’s already everything she was trying to help Dustin become.

She may not *love* Malcolm, but she likes what he represents - control, prestige, certainty. That alone makes this arrangement bearable, maybe even promising.

Lilith Pleasant

There's an underlying desire to break free. Though this arrangement comes as yet another one of their mother's controlling whims, Lilith is choosing to reclaim her sense of agency by viewing it as trading one form of control for the *appearance* of another. She knows Alexander Goth could never, and would not dare to control her.

He offers a kind of neutral zone that lets her explore what she actually wants.

Dirk still lingers like smoke after a fire, clinging to her even when she thinks she’s scrubbed it all clean. She doesn’t think marrying Alexander will erase that. But maybe he'll finally get the message and leave her alone. Deep down, Lilith may still not believe she deserves better.

She agrees not out of submission, but from a hunger to build something of her own in a world that’s already tried to define her.

[milliondollarnooboo]

One good thing to come out of my inability to post atm is that I’ve had enough time to keep desperately looking for a wedding dress for Lilith and I’ve FINALLY found someone that she’d actually wear.

Some facts about how I’m styling the girls:

1. In the engagement shoot, Malcom and Angela’s stylists were going for an elegant old money vibe, which Malcom’s legacy represents and Angela fits seamlessly. It works with her personal style too because in my mind she’s semi minimalist and knows what looks good on her. For this the stylists had a clearer vision and it’s a bit more generic.

Lilith and Alexander’s stylists took a more traditional gothic approach. Honestly, they were leaning way more towards the Goth (family) aesthetic than trying to balance with what Lilith would actually wear. In my mind, Lilith is more alt-punk, and her style just so happens to carry a lot of dark colours and that gets her easily mistaken for goth. She can appreciate some elements of it and would wear a few bits but it’s not how she personally defines herself.

The stylists felt that would not look elegant enough for the message they were trying to convey, so they kept it simple and on-the-nose with the classic tragic goth vibe. Also, Mortimer probably had a lot of influence over how his son and their legacy were going to be portrayed. That man does NOT play about his legacy.

You’ll notice that at this stage in the story, a lot of the styling caters more to the mens image than the Pleasant girls. It’s because in Mary Sue’s mind, they haven’t cemented their place in high society enough for their individual brands to really stand out. So she’s doing this so that the alliance gets as much support and visibility as possible, even outside Pleasantview potentially.

2. For the weddings, I wanted to give the girls a little more space to be themselves in their dresses. Angela wasn’t a challenge because her style is more conventional so I could put her in most dresses and hairstyles and she’d be fine.

Lilith however, was a bit more difficult. At first I was simply going to use whatever dark outfit I had and try to pass it off as potentially another instance of Mortimer’s rigid opinions on visuals. But then that just didn’t feel right; I felt like for all his quietness Alex would at least try to push for Lilith to have some level of choice in what she wears on her wedding day. He feels she’d deserve that much.

And so that’s how we got here.

This arrangement may not be 100% something any of them wants, but I want there to be some pockets of freedom for the girls to feel like this could be worth it (even if they won’t see why for a long time). Getting Lilith a dress that actually suits her preferences restores her voice in this arrangement and shows the world that this new era of Goths is going to be different. Not bound by conformity, just willing to carry forward the legacy in their own way.

3. I try to switch out their outfits for every chapter, so that it feels like they’re changing clothes daily. Idk how long I can keep it up but I sure as heck am willing to try because all the cc I’ve downloaded needs to be put to good use lol. I didn’t spend hours upon hours downloading it for nothing!

Their hair will stay mostly the same for certain periods of time to simulate reality, only changing when there’s an event that requires styling and for bed or activity. Occasionally it’ll look longer because they may get extensions (see Angela’s hair in the photoshoot) but I’ll try my best to keep consistent length.

It’ll only change completely when they go for a new look, like getting a haircut or there’s been enough time past for the hair to now be longer.

4. I’m going to allow their style to evolve as they grow as characters. They will pick and drop interests and quirks that may reflect in their styles along the way, and that will reflect in their wardrobes. Sometimes their appearances will be a symbol for whatever the main point of that arc is - like in the announcements chapter, they both wore dainty matching silver chokers. Now we all know Lilith would rather wear something less flimsy, but this was not her choice. Angela suited it more. Mary Sue was using it for optics and to communicate a certain image to the public about her daughters and unity. Something to the effect of, ‘see? Both young women can be trusted to be elegant, mature representatives for the community!’

It was also another instance of Lilith being pushed under Angela’s shadow because it’s ‘more convenient’ for everyone that way.

Not sure when I’ll be back to updating but the story is definitely there, just in need of some touching up and adjusting a few elements.

[positivelybeastly]

Characterisation

This is just a collection of notes regarding the way I play Beast and the few deviations from canon that I have. For the most part, probably 90-95% of what you see on panel that Hank has done, my Hank has also done, because I love the fact that this man has gone to the Dr. Seuss dimension and hung out with a Transformers character in canon, but there are one or two exceptions.

Feline Hank

Grant Morrison's New X-Men and the fake coming out. I write Hank as bisexual demiromantic, meaning he enjoys sex with more than one gender, and will engage in romantic relationships with anyone he has a strong emotional connection to. I personally read Hank as somewhat closeted during the early stages of his life, and Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, was something of a wake-up call to the fact that he was not entirely straight.

As a result, if you bring this up with my Hank, he came out as gay around about seven years ago (current Hank is 37, for context), and clarified his bisexuality to the press not long after. I love Morrison's characterisation of Hank, but the fake coming out was just gross on many levels and I genuinely believe not only that it hurt Hank's character, but that it's a misread of his sexuality. If you want more on this, please check here.

Post-Intervention

This is a whole messed up ass situation because I'm one of the few people who genuinely thinks that Hank wouldn't have done the whole time travel thing to begin with (really just not his style), but there's some good conversations to be had about it, so you can assume that everything that happened on panel happened, just less - Bendis-y.

Also, this Hank knows magic because unlike every other damn X-writer, I actually remember that he's meant to remember everything baby human Hank did while he was in the present.

Avengers

He's my funny goodtime boy, no notes.

X-Force

This is the big one.

Ben Percy's version of Beast sucks balls and while I would have loved it if we could have avoided going full supervillain, we're here now, and while I don't like how it happened, Hank is not a saint and it's interesting to grapple with his psychology, so we're doing it but different.

This version of Beast is essentially undergoing a long, stable, controlled dissociative episode and is not what you would call sane. It's the only real way his characterisation makes sense.

In my headcanon, Abigail Brand, his longtime girlfriend, died and was resurrected while pregnant during the events of David Haller's X-Men Legacy, losing the child in the process, and finding out that his offspring had essentially been wiped from existence before he even knew about it has drained Hank of all his remaining warmth and optimism. He fundamentally does not believe that the world, or people, or life, is good anymore.

This is not an excuse.

I'm not here to give you some 2012 Loki apologism or say that he didn't do anything bad. He did. But going from where he was last in canon, in Rosenberg's Astonishing X-Men and Uncanny Avengers, to X-Force, it's the only justifiable reason he changed so much and so hard, and it's the only way the snap makes sense to me with existing canon information.

Your character does not know about this. If Hank has his way, your character will never know about this because it's not your damn business.

This version of Beast does not consider himself to be Hank McCoy anymore. He does not immediately answer to Hank, and he will never refer to himself as Hank in his internal narration. He has completely separated himself into Hank (dead) and Beast (alive - just about) because it simply hurts less and allows him to exert some degree of control over his life. He does not care what happens to him, his body, or his reputation anymore. There is only making sure that everyone else in his life is safe. Everything is expendable in pursuit of that goal.

The Irredeemable Beast

Naturally, this is going to lead to conflict.

It's also worth noting that while this version of Hank is on the plumper side, he is still physically able, agile, and a danger in a fight. I'm tired of Hank being written as useless in combat just because he's smart and smart people aren't good at fighting, which feels like it's been the case for a while now. He isn't a jobber for Kraven the Hunter.

My fic covering what this version of Hank is like, what he's doing, and what he's about.

In a nutshell, he was psychically reset back in Wolverine #35 by Jean Grey, and came back . . . mostly whole, just before the Hellfire Gala massacre. He knows he's beyond redemption, but he's going to try and do good anyway.

His mutation has changed once more, this time into a grey furred form with an accelerated, Wolverine-esque healing factor, and while he is stable, he still has underlying issues and psychological problems that will make him not the Hank you may know.

Dark Beast and Battle of the Atom

Pretty much exactly what you see on panel, though Dark Beast is obviously not a head in a jar on Sinister's desk when we interact because well yeah he wouldn't be.

No matter how sexually charged that is.

This is the basic gist of it! There are obviously a ton of other details and headcanons and such that I haven't mentioned because there's just so much, but these are the main canon divergences I can think of. If I think of anything else, they will be added to this post.