The Character Corner: Exile

In Soviet Russia, milkshake drink you!

There's not a lot to Exile, but he still displays more interesting traits that one can play around with then either Hunter or Colleen do. I'm sure people are not going to like that I said that, but that's how I feel.

Exile was once my favorite character until Blitz edged him out of first place some years back, but I still really like Exile. Not simply because he's a Siberian husky, like I suspect a lot of people do -- not just furries either, but people in general (and I'm not trying to knock anyone for having a favorite dog breed, but liking a character based solely on their species or breed and absolutely nothing else is honestly kinda shallow, IMHO). I like nice characters, and Exile is a genuinely bighearted, happy, friendly guy. I also like Exile's accent and how he mixes up his English, all of which further adds to his charm. The fact that they played against type and made him the gadgeteer as well as the Rover who knew his way around computers and vehicles was also cool, since you wouldn't necessarily expect that from a character like him. 

I've never seen anyone who said they disliked Exile before, interestingly enough. Aside from him and Muzzle (who either gets treated as a deus ex machina or is just outright forgotten/ignored by most fans), I've seen at least one anti-fan for the rest of the Rovers (and some of them have more anti-fans then others do...). Hunter and Colleen seem to have the bigger respective fanbases though.

There's some strange fanon which has sprang up around everyone's favorite Ruskie. I started noticing it well after the fall of the first iteration of the fandom back in the mid to late 90s. I don't get why so many people depict Exile as being this massive hulking beast height-wise. Shag was obviously the tallest Rover, which makes sense because his breed, komondorok (plural form of komondor), can weigh up to 125 lbs and stand 27.5 inches at their withers (the area between a dog's shoulder blades and the back of their necks. This spot is used to measure height). Huskies are much smaller at 21-23.5 inches and 45-60 lbs for male dogs. Exile, while being pretty stout and muscular, was actually one of the shorter guys. 

This is the best screencap I could find of Exile standing relatively level beside another guy. He looks like he's a few inches shorter then Hunter, which he would not be were he 8'' tall or whatever. I mean, they both could be taller then Blitz, but I doubt it. I'd have find another screencap or rewatch the series again to see how he measures up to Blitz. I have a strong sneaking suspicion this whole "Exile is a giant" thing ties into sort of a macro/bear fantasy/fetish for gay male fans, since the fandom very strongly overlaps with furry fandom. Please note that I'm not attacking gay men or furries (though I will honestly say I do have strong criticisms regarding furries), I'm just pointing out something I've noticed. You wanna depict a 6'7'' Exile lovingly massaging your OC, go wild homie.

Some more fanon I don't really get is when fan writers make Exile an expert on anything supernatural that comes up. I assume this comes from the werewolf episode "A Hair Of The Dog That Bit You." It's something else I'm not... wild about.  Just because he related a legend from his homeland to the other Rovers when he thought he was becoming a werewolf doesn't mean he'd also know how to fight vampires or be knowledgeable about fairies. It's like someone expecting me to tell them all about jiang shi just because people talk about seeing Bigfoot where I live. Why not just have the Rovers, I dunno, research the legend or myth together, or go talk to a real expert?

His array of superpowers indisputably made Exile the team powerhouse in battle, but I kinda hate how the show underplayed his super-strength. The Master mentioned it in the first episode, then we never see him blatantly use it after that. Instead more attention went to his vision-related powers, which, granted are cool and useful, but still, I really wanted to see more feats of strength from him. It would've made him even more versatile, and it'd be fun watching a shorter dude toss cars and stuff around. This is just theorizing on my part, since nobody who's ever worked on the show before has ever come out and talked about it AFAIK, but I think the inspiration for his powers comes from the fact that he's a sled dog. Sled dogs can pull heavy loads, and they tend to come from colder climates.

Being single and one of the more desirable male characters, Exile tends to be a pretty popular character to pair off with OFCs, the vast majority of which suck, to bluntly put it. They're usually either horrible Mary Sues (or sometimes, Gary Stus) who were/are either bland or very, very very annoying. Not to mention that a number of ship fics featuring Exile tends to be really out there furry fetish stuff/or porn, especially if Exile is paired with Hunter/or Blitz. 

"Well wait, why are you kinkshaming, you uptight prude?!"

Listen, if you post some of the stuff that I've stumbled over (I'm not about to go into detail since there's no way I can not make it explicit, and I don't know who's actually looking at this blog. It's not just regular old "insert tab B into slot A" sex though), not everybody's gonna be up there oooing and awwing over it. It is legitimately bizarre stuff. Harmless yes, but still bizarre. For the record, if someone were to actually write a good ExileXBlitz fic that was an actual romance and not ultra weird OOC furry wanklit, I'd read it.

Moving on, if I was going to ship him with another canon character, I actually like the idea of him and Colleen together. Never in a million years would I have thought of this pairing were it not for Usami and her story Eye Of The Wolf. The both of them do get along pretty well in the show, and it's a refreshing change of pace from all the Hunter/Colleen stuff. In my main bunch of stories however, Exile's getting shipped with an OFC (holding off on revealing the character's identity for spoiler purposes).

Dokey-okay. :) So coming up next time you're gonna see my many Exile headcanons, my inspiration in writing him, etc etc.

About that talking space rock show

Earlier in the year, I was really glad to see a few people on YouTube reexamining Steven Universe as well as long-time fans standing up for it and correcting all the misinformation and outright lies that have dogged the series since it's arrival on the scene.

ETA: Decided to link to a different video:

 

The Character Corner: Esteban, Part Two

'I wonder how long it's going to take her to notice the 'kick me' sign I stuck on her back?...'

You thought we were done baby but I'm back for round two with a follow up to this post: link. I know it's a very last minute addition, but I decided to take this particular approach to my character analyses from The Spiral Writer. She writes for multiple fandoms like myself. If you like Henry Stickmin or Sonic The Hedgehog especially, then go check out her blog.

But yeah, it's a great way to keep headcanon separate from my discussing the characters as canon presents them.

INSPIRATION

My approach to writing him honestly stems from just my watching the show, really. I draw my own conclusions about his character. I think I've mentioned this elsewhere before, but Esteban does not prominently feature in a great deal of fic in the fandom, so it isn't like I really can find a whole lot of inspiration there anyways. There is one author who I can say has inspired me though, J.B. Blackwood. Unfortunately however, she's taken her stories down. One particular fic of her's featured a drunk, depressed Esteban mourning his parents during Dia de los Muertos, and their distressed ghosts could only look on sadly (if you thought it was tough finding Esteban-centered fics, think about how hard it is to find fics that actually touch on his parents). There was another dramatic fic she wrote exploring how things could've played out between him, Shuriki, and Victor right after the coup. Both were terrific little one-shots. You can check out the headcanon section below to see a few things she graciously allowed me to borrow.

FUTURE PLANS

Outside of my ongoing Elena Of Avalor rewrite, I actually have about three ideas in total. One is a fairly older idea I've had for a Friendship Is Magic crossover which has evolved quite a bit from when it was first devised. Of course it's an AU, diverging from canon right before the start of EoA's third season. Over time it's become more influenced by the concept behind isekais, except for lacking that particular subgenre's more annoying cliches, IE, there will be no harems, Esteban is not going to be an overpowered MC, etc. 

The second story idea is inspired by another fanfic concept I heard about and thought sounded interesting, called infinite looping. Basically, a character finds themselves involuntarily jumping from one different version of their universe to the next. So the basic premise will be about Esteban hopping about assorted realities. 

The last idea is a relatively new one, so I really don't have very many details about it to share just yet. I will say that it's yet another AU, a drama with romantic (as I'm gonna use it as an opportunity to write about a crossover pairing for Esteban that I think could be interesting) and supernatural elements.

HEADCANON

- He actually does not have a horse or ride in the show I believe (if I'm wrong then someone correct me please). I can see them giving some dumb reason as to why, like “He thinks horses are icky.” I’m sure if cars were around in his world he’d get one, but since there aren’t, he’s stuck with horses and it’d be incredibly impractical for him not to know how to ride one. In my headcanon, he is an equestrian who has grown up with horses and is pretty comfortable with them as a result. His newest horse is a buckskin Andalusian gelding named Arpegiar. 

- Speaking of cars, for a modern AU I imagine him being an aficionado of sports cars.    

- Due to the trauma he’s been through as well as his feelings of guilt he’s become a functional alcoholic. I was inspired by the aforementioned J.B. Blackwood.
 
- I would describe my interpretation of Esteban as being far less clownish and dimwitted then his canon self; IE, in my fics, he would never just grab unwrapped tamales and toss them into a cooking pot, no matter how hungry or impatient he was.

- Aside from the palace, he sometimes also stays at his parents' estate in Villa Rica.

- Both the names for Esteban’s parents here as well as what happened to him at Shuriki’s hands in the aftermath of coup is courtesy of J.B. Blackwood again. Regarding the latter... yes, she did rape Esteban. I don't know how obvious that was to readers. I do know that at least one person picked up on it. The 'rents names are different here so as to differentiate my fanon from the source material. 

- I love the idea of Esteban's father being voiced by the late great Raul Julia. His parents were largely ignored in the show, so I'd like to explore who they were here. 

- Time for a fun headcanon! If he gets enough alcohol in him and there’s music playing, then Esteban will cut loose and start dancing. He’s actually pretty good at it.  

- EoA is inconsistent as to whether or not he’s supposed to be a coward. The Disney wiki write-up flat-out calls him one, and he was shown in this light in a few episodes. But earlier on when an evil fairy was invading Avalor and had giant vines attacking the palace, Esteban was right up there with Francisco chopping away at them. And he was the one who stopped Shuriki from casting a spell on Elena and Sofia. So?.... Look, he’s got plenty of flaws as is. I don’t even mind his being scared of Shuriki. That’d be completely understandable, especially within my setting. But does he really need to be a coward too? That said, this does tie into my idea about his having PTSD. I’m dead certain the show didn’t even intend for this to be a thing, but some of his behavior (the irritability and his fear when in Shuriki’s presence) could be construed as his having it. 

- It was confirmed on Twitter (I think? I was only told this secondhand) that canonically Esteban is not of the Royal House/royal bloodline, being only related Elena through his mother. Here however, he is actually part of the Royal House, which gives him a stronger claim to the throne and further fuels his feelings towards the matter.

- I plan to play up an "opposites" angle between him and Elena in a couple of ways: I.E.: she's a swordsman... girl, while he prefers the musket and enjoys target shooting.

- I do intend for my Esteban to actually possess a sense of humor. We did see him try to joke around that one time with Isa in "King Of The Carnivale", and he's had some excellent snarky comments here and there, but otherwise, he was set up to be the humorless killjoy as yet another way to make Elena and the rest of the perma-happy characters look good (refer to Isa's reaction to his joking around). So I made him dry-humored to counteract that (plus I prefer dry humor and find it works really well in prose form). I think it fits his personality.

- In my fics, Esteban's last name is not Castillo-Flores. That's Elena and Isa's last name. Since Spanish surnames combine the mother's first surname and the father's first surname, it'd have to include his dad's surname. And since the father is a non-entity in the cartoon, I decided to make his surname Bandera-Mazariegos. So Esteban's surname in my works would be Bandera-Castillo.

PERSONAL

What else could I add here that hasn't already been said? He's one of the most relatable characters in the show for me (under different circumstances I might've included Mateo as another relatable character, but meh, I'm not really big on EoA's younger characters). In addition to his more dramatic moments and deeper characterization, he has some pretty funny lines and scenes, like his spats with Doña Paloma, and he winds up stealing the show for me. I would argue that he is more complex than the characters we tend to see from these sorts of shows.

As much as I detest the last season of the show, and for all the issues I have with how Esteban was approached early on and his blatant character assasination later, I'm still glad that we got to have a character like him around. 

Stone by day, lurker by night...

Stumbled over a really interesting thread inviting people to share their own unpopular opinions about the show Gargoyles. I'm not in the fandom, even though it is something I like checking out fic and fan art for. 

Though there are one or two things mentioned there that I either don't really care about or disagree with, the vast majority of things people are saying is stuff I've thought myself for a long time. For one, the fandom's fixation with strictly sticking to the ideas Greg Weisman lays out on his Station 8 site, such as the Timedancer stuff. People in general have different ideas on exactly what constitutes canon versus non-canon, myself included. Since the concepts Weisman discusses were never actually featured in the show, I personally do not really consider them canon. I think the best Gargoyles fanfics I've read were the ones that just did their own thing instead of clinging to his ideas, some of which... *sigh* aren't really the greatest. I also just enjoy seeing fan creativity in action, but this rigid "make everything fit into what Greg said" mentality more often then not clamps down on fan theories and other fun stuff.

Several people in that thread also bring up how fandom and even canon seems to gloss over the fact that Xanatos did a lot of super-messed up stuff in the series, like experimenting on the poor and minorities, and never paid for it.

But I wasn't too shocked to discover yet another fandom where certain opinions and thoughts get held up as The Law, and anybody who doesn't want to tow the party line gets ostracized or worse. Sad.

February 2024 status report

• I've been working on New Dogs when able to, and I've regained a little bit of inspiration for A Brush With Danger, so I'll try to work on that one ASAP.

• There are still a few more character analysis posts I plan on bringing over -- the ones for Exile, Blitz, and Professor Callaghan.

Imposter Syndrome commentary & notes

REFERENCES: 

- Imposter syndrome refers to a real psychological condition where a person feels anxiety and self-doubt because they basically believe themselves to be frauds and worry about being exposed as such, even though their skills, success, relationships, etc are genuine. I thought it was a fitting title.

GENERAL:

- If you've watched Trollhunters then you'll know why TK reacted so strongly to Otto calling Patamon a cat. XD

- Trollhunters is one of those things that has some cool ideas, but gets bogged down by a lot of goofy writing and cringe/or childish humor, among other issues. I'm actually glad I didn't get any further into the Tales Of Arcadia spinoffs, because it sounds like the whole thing drops even further in quality (IE: the one show with the two aliens and the infamous finale movie).

The Changelings are one of the most interesting elements in the series. I do think they're... well, stupid in terms of their capacity for self-preservation though. They seem perfectly content in following a leader who cares nothing for or respects them, and is openly blatant with his disregard for them, to the point of following him to their own literal destruction in the end. 

Better the devil you know, I guess. I feel this is the sort of environment Changeling!T.K. would look at, then look over at the Chosen Children, and decide he'd much rather give his loyalty to the latter. Also, if you're a Changeling and you fail some sort of mission you're given, the boss will literally eat you. Strickler was the only Changeling who was not okay with any of this (something I think should've been explored further), and even he did a lot of stupid things (though that was more tied to his antics as a villain).

Actually, upon further reflection, I feel like the Changelings both as characters and concepts were wasted. Many of them get killed off the end of the first season.

- I do like that air of mystery that the Changelings still have about them to this day. All we really know about them is that they are trolls the Gumm-Gumms and Morgana La Fay took and altered somehow (it's never stated exactly how). They're linked to a human infant who's been previously abducted, and they take on that human's form and proceed to live their life. I know troll!Enrique wasn't a character that we the audience were meant to really take seriously, but his presence just raises more questions. I assume the Changeling would have grown in size as he grew up as Enrique, but do trolls not have an infant stage, or the infants already able to speak and have adult cognizance? Or is that just something limited to Changelings? Were the trolls that were experimented on young ones, or adults? 

But yeah, I admit to enjoying having some mystery about certain canon elements in a work of fiction. It is cool to see canon explore some things (Godfather II delving into Vito Corleone's backstory, for example), but not so much when it feels like they're just shoveling mounds of crap at viewers. Like I think Ixis Naugus's backstory in the original Archie Sonic comics is hella goofy and just kinda lame. It added nothing to his character and he might as well have just retained his mysterious past.

- The idea of doing a Trollhunters crossover where some good guy actually turns out to be a Changeling in disguise has always floated around in my mind after reading this story. ETA: My bad, I didn't actually share the link. Initially I was going to do a Disney/Trollhunters crossover, but none of the Disney properties I looked at really worked for me. Then one day, Digimon just popped into my head as a good candidate for the other fandom. It just came down to picking which season to use. My top two choices were either the Adventure continuity or Frontier (which is flawed, yeah, but I still really like it. Might be a nostalgia thing).

- I'm going to hold off on doing a character analysis for T.K. for now. I haven't really seen the entirety of Adventure or Adventure 02 in years. I did rewatch some of both seasons on Hulu recently (more Adventure then 02 though). I will say that I quite enjoy the character as he is in Adventure, but in 02 the now older T.K. often radiates this smug golden boy vibe that kind of puts me off him. And the show just kind of leans into it too. When it came to IS, my thought process went to "wouldn't it be funny if somebody that perfect was hiding something?" Looking at both seasons of Digimon through the lens of "what if TK was a Changeling the entire time?" adds a interesting element to things.

The story isn't really about Patamon per se, but looks at both his and T.K.'s relationship, so I don't know if I should do an analysis on him as well, or if I do, just combine his with TK's.

- I would love to see the Gumm-Gumms' reactions to the partner Digimon (especially Gatomon) and seeing them digivolve. Actually, I'd like to see how Jim and co would react as well. 

FUN FACTS:

N/A

Who are these two?

 

Found this image at a Sonic The Hedgehog club on Amino. Grimer and Rouge I recognize, but who's the character next to Rouge? And that robot on the end (that is a robot, isn't it?)?

Oh, and I guess it's 2024 now, so Happy New Year's. :-) A couple of my resolutions is to try get more writing done (especially for stories), as well as continue improving at drawing. 

BTW, the notes for Imposter Syndrome are still being worked on. Other then that I don't have much of anything else to report. Until next time!