fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6988 ]

[ SECRET POST #6988 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6988 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #998.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What are your favorite character archetypes? What do you love about them? What are your favorite versions of those archetypes? Are there any versions of your favorite that you actually dislike?

On one hand I love a good tragic villain or well-intentioned person who got in too deep and went too far, bonus points for if they win a pyrrhic victory at some point.

On the other hand I dislike most characters considered tragic villains because they get too woobified or try too hard to justify what they did. It's hard to get the balance right.

Oh man yes. Same with redemption arcs for me. Done right? Amazing. Done in a woobified way that justifies their actions or pretends they weren't ever bad? no thank you.

Yes! I love a good redemption arc where people DON'T all magically forgive the person and the person has to deal with the fact that you can't undo what's been done, some people will never forgive them, and that will never change. Bonus points if they go into the fact that others will even judge the people DO give them a second chance for giving them one at all, and they're dragging other people into it with them.

Yes! I can love a redemption equals death done right. I love that while Anakin is redeemed saving his son, for the rest of the galaxy, he's still Vader. But I do love a redemption arc where they have to live with the things they've done and continue to make amends maybe without being forgiven.

This is why I just can't like Sephiroth: because fandom is insistent on woobifying him even when canon itself makes very clear that he is doing everything of his own free will AND that he is ultimately irredeemable.

Before all that, the reason I couldn't like Sephiroth is he has no personality. Maybe he gains one in the expanded universe but like. He didn't have one in the game canon

Didn't help that a lot of the time, it wasn't actually him you meet. And the whole Nibelheim thing was too bland to actually give him a personality aside from "damn he crazy" - which makes sense from a narrative POV but it still doesn't make him have an actual personality.

Re: Favorite Character archetypes

(Anonymous) - 2026-02-22 22:37 (UTC) - Expand

This is how I feel about Loki in the MCU. He was fun as a villain. But then the creators saw how popular he was and decided to go along with the fans who woobified him. And retroactively even ruined his villain parts.

I never played ff7 when it was new but I'd heard about how popular he is just from being on the internet. My gf loves the ff games in general, got the ff7 remakes and wanted to show me them because I'd never played 7 and she was curious about how I'd like or dislike the characters, as in she thought I might like Sephiroth due to him being a villain. Queue me finding him funny as fuck and far too much of a looser to like in any capacity and it's been tickling her that I just Do Not Get the hype for the dude at all.

Like I thought there was something more there than hot guy with white hair, but no, he doesn't even have a fun personality, he just decides to be evil with almost no hesitation and I could not for the life of me find that interesting. Oh well.

I always though his costume design was silly and his theme song was silly as well. Never understood why that was so popular.

Uh... the own free will part is HIGHLY debatable considering the whole "former child soldier who is daddie's science experiment" and that's not even taking the whole Jenova bullshit and his general insanity into account. Which still doesn't excuse what he does but I'm not so sure about it all being THAT clear that he is doing everything of his own free will. Also, it's not even really him for large parts of the game. Which was basically what made him kind of boring to me.

Re: Favorite Character archetypes

(Anonymous) - 2026-02-23 01:27 (UTC) - Expand

I played the og back in the day and still play it on occasion and I can't see any personality in Sephiroth at all, and by the time the remakes came around, it's like people forgot he's been brainwashed since Nibelheim and was raised as a child soldier, which are apparently the same people who forgot Cloud was contained for five years, malnourished and experimented on and assimilated Zack's personality due to the Jenova cells. Post reveal, Cloud is trying to find himself and forgive himself.

Characters who have been alone all their lives but still have a heart of gold despite it all (ie Knuckles)

Oooo. I can't think of any examples of that, but I love that idea. I think I'd probably love that too if I saw it. Sounds adorable.

I like brutally efficent/competent characters but they tend to go the Mary-Sue route more often than not, which is a pity.

Repressed, reserved, uptight aristocrats who are either:
(a) played straight and have an inflexible world view, or
(b) gap moé in some way (for example, less capable than they present themselves or they really want to make friends, but don't know how to because they think commoners are different species LMAO)

Reformers with the best of intentions who are too extreme about their own ideals and bring disaster onto everyone's heads (like Pale King from Hollow Knight).

People who struggle with the loss of a previous identity/their self being torn away from them somehow, such as Dr Jekyll.

Assholes with a heart of gold and/or one person they will protect with their life. I think Vegeta just cemented my love for them at an early age.

I like bitch-ass villains in general, ones who know they're wrong and are doing it anyway, the ones who think they're right, the ones who are sympathetic but still need to be stopped. I just enjoy villains in general.

I like legitimately Good heroes as well, the ones who really do just try to do the best they can even if the odds are stacked against them. I just really like the heroic sacrifice for the greater good thing that comes with these characters, and sure I like them to live as well, but if they do die and it works? Narrative kryptonite to me tbh.

So much yes, especially to villains who know what they do and enjoy what they do and just have fun. I love all villains. But that is one of my favorite. And then heroes who sacrifice themselves in some way. Sacrifice in general. Love it so much.

Very laid back or out of sync character who is also the most proficient or capable person in the room. I like characters who are very confident and settled in themselves and don't care what others think. Examples: Chris Knight (Real Genius), Wei Wuxian (MDZS), Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)

I don't like it when the character has made being competent/smart their entire personality and it becomes arrogance hiding insecurity and then they use it as a cudgel to try to always get their way: Tony Stark (MCU), Sherlock Holmes (only BBC Sherlock), Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)

I. love. LIARS.

I love any character with an intricately constructed facade-- not necessarily an alter ego. Not every superhero secret identity fits this for me, in fact most don't quite hit just right for me on that front. And not every duplicitous villain does it, either. With the right writer, (comics) Tony Stark, like Bruce Wayne, can meet the standard set by Percy Blakeney-- because my absolute favorite iteration is someone who is intelligent and skilled and trying to save lives... and if anyone asks, the absolute dumbest fancy-man to ever live. Complete airhead in very expensive clothes, seemingly guileless, you wonder how he hasn't lost his fortune through sheer idiocy sometimes.

And then from there, like... any heroic character whose life is enough of a lie will have me, but sometimes it does not have to be a whole other secret identity deal-- it can also be a character who puts a lot of emphasis on having the right Appearance while having hidden depths-- which can be anything from Rarity My Little Pony seeming like every shallow girly stereotype while being exceptionally *selfless*, to Dean Winchester being... Like That, and then hitting us with 'Lady, I'm Tolstoy.' It can also just be a character who has one big secret that they need to construct a false life around, a la Bashir DS9, who spends so much of his life pretending to be a little clumsier, a little slower, than he really is, while also having to put forth the idea of a man trying like hell to present himself as *better* than the idea of Julian Bashir he needs everyone to believe in is.

And while I do prefer heroic liars, there ARE villains that are so magnificent about their facades that I am ALL IN. (in telling a friend who my favorite characters were in a book he'd read before me, he had a Reaction to one, and I had to say yes, I already KNOW, I knew VERY quickly that she was a fraud and a liar, that's the POINT babey)

Of course, between the two, you have the morally greyer. Garak, my beloved. This is perhaps where I'd put Vetinari, not to mention one of his favorite victim/civic employees, Moist (his other favorite civic employee, of course, is far more forthright). I love spies and con men, and they are definitely liars, though few have one single facade. I would still put E.L. 'Tenspeed' Turner here-- like Moist, he changes identities and scams on a dime rather than having a single false identity, and like Moist, there's a man who believes he can use his talents for good rather than for crime... he just does something for me. Harold Hill and Max Bialystock I'd put as con men with one singular facade and one long-running con.

Yes, I've been told I need to watch Leverage.

People with really, really strong moral and/or political opinions who want to Change the World but it's more complicated than they thought. Both the idealist version and the angry version.

Whatever the character is that has Serious Trauma (not sexual trauma, just emotional shit) and has the inability to get close to other humans because of their trauma, despite DESPERATELY wanting to be close to other humans. Bonus if they're super flirty and/or super snarky.

That shit is my CATNIP.

Weirdly, I love the good guy. Steve Rogers, Clark Kent, Optimus Prime, Thor, the great leader type that cannot see how they are actually flawed in how they approach life. I hated the grimdark Zack Snyder Superman — what a waste of Henry Cavill’s talent that was — but Steve not seeing the reality of Hydra, or Optimus not seeing the truth of Megatron’s battle for worker’s rights, or Thor not understanding Loki’s manipulations? I love that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only