Berserk Buttons

Welcome back to Fanundrums, fellow fans! This week we’re going to take on a fun new topic: berserk buttons! (Edited to provide link to TV Tropes, which is where we first heard the term. Enter at your own risk. It's a rabbit hole.)

As in, what makes a character go from mild-mannered to HULK SMASH!

Precisely. For example, in Leverage, every one of the main characters has a berserk button. For Nate, it’s sick children. For Elliot, it’s children being in danger or messing with his food. For Parker, it’s orphans. For Hardison, it’s messing with Lucille (his van). For Sophie, it’s questioning her talents as an actress and a grifter.

In general, if you hurt a child in Leverage, you’re going to get slammed. Hard. By very scary, talented people.

Basically, don’t mess with kids. And don’t be a dishonest insurance company, because that’s Nate’s other button. So why are buttons important?

Well, berserk buttons reveal a lot about a character. They show values and personality. For example, you can learn a lot about Nate by the fact that he gets angry over sick kids, and you can see how he’s different from Sophie, who loses control if you call out her skills. You can see that Nate has a soft spot (maybe from a past event) regarding sick children and that Sophie takes pride in her skills.

Psychosuperwhogravlock

Welcome to a special edition of Fanundrums, anticipating tonight’s episode of Gravity Falls, and combining our love of all sorts of fandoms, as usual. This is taken from a Facebook conversation Allison and I had last week, after writing the last post, and we thought it would be fun for our loyal readers to see some Behind-the-Scenes stuff.

Discworld Avengers part II

Hello, everyone! I hope you enjoyed your hiatus, but we’re back with some more fandom conundrums for you. We’re here to keep our promise and deliver on the second part of our Marvel Avengers/Discworld City Watch comparisons.

Who do we want to start with?  

Let’s start with Cheery Littlebottom.

*GIGGLE. Guffaw. Synonym for laugh heartily* Which is what Vimes did when he heard her name. After she left his office, of course. (She’s a Dwarf, by the way).

Because Vimes would never damage his reputation by laughing in front of a prospective employee.

The Ankh-Morpork City Watch as the Avengers

Welcome back to Fanundrums! This week, we’re talking about Discworld and the Marvel Universe. Specifically, the City Watch and the Avengers.

Because, let’s be honest, there’s too much in both those worlds to cover in one post.

Which is why we’ve spent probably … I don’t know how many hours geeking out over both of them, separately and together. Here, we present a small, specialized portion of our geeking out for your enjoyment.