Idle Doodling: Weapon Choice and Characters · 8:13am Oct 4th, 2019
One of the reasons pony writers love starting scenes in cafes is because food and drink orders are weirdly expressive. When you show a character a menu, what they chose reveals their preferences and it can be a cute way to just reiterate who the characters are. Twilight ordering a strong coffee and then pouring four sugar sachets into it, next to Rarity with a chai tea and Fluttershy with an iced tea and Pinkie Pie with a malted milkshake shows comparitive preferences.
Every time a character has to make a decision, no matter how small or simple, you reveal something about that characters preferences. The more things they have to choose from, the more significant that choice is.
So weapons are a really interesting one to me, because there's very little spontaneuity to them. Guns, especially, are very conscious, deliberate decisions to acquire and own. So I thought I'd make a little doodle for what weapon preferences reveal about characters, and hope someone else would get a smile out of it.
Shotguns
Full length double barrel; I wasn't trained how to kill things, but by God do I have the ambition to
Sawn off: I was that last person, but practice has made up for lack of training
Pump action: I am the cowboy of the 21st century. Funnily enough, I tend to associate this one with tough female characters. I think of Sarah Conner.
Combat/automatic shotgun: I am a soldier protagonist, and I need to be differentiated from everyone with an assault rifle.
Pistols
Fully-Automatic/Uzi: I'm a Bad Guy
Semi-Automatic: I am a Professional. If not, I wish I was.
Revolver: My fingers have calluses, I know how to fix everything I own, and I want whatever I shoot at to stay shot.
Desert Eagle: I am a yuppie crime lord
Blades:
Katana: I really don't even need to say this one, do I?
Fencing blade: I am very rich, and I think I'm smarter than you, and I have a monologue.
Kitchen knife: Either I did not plan on being here today, or I am a serial killer
Box cutter: I am 17 and Troubled
Switchblade: I am 17 and in a gang
Broken bottle: I did not plan on being here today, but I did plan on this day coming
Any combat or tacticool knife not bought exclusively for camping purposes: I am shockingly racist
Butterfly Knife: I am the schimitar guy that Indiana Jones shoots. I only exist to start trouble around protagonists who don't want any trouble.
Any Light Machine Gun:
I will not survive this this story, but I'm hoping to go down in a blaze of glory
Assault Rifles and Submachine Guns
AK pattern: I am a part of the resistance / freedom fighter / poor citizen militia
Tommy Gun: I own a violin case, but I do not own a violin.
Anything else: I am very boring
The author is very specific about make, model and ammunition: Either I am very boring and my author is too, or I am Crazy, Prepared.
Rifles
Old boit-action hunting rifle: I am rural, and I can aim.
New rifle: I am an efficient killer who feels neither pleasure nor remorse by killing you.
Lever-action: I am John Wayne
Sawn-off hunting rifle: Drugs are a core part of my personality.
Misc:
Bow: I live in a fantasy world, but not necessarily a fantasy setting
Crossbow: Either I'm just a more rural "new rifle", or I think murder is fun
Golf club: I am rich and trying to keep up
Tennis racquet: I am rich and dead weight
Baseball bats, pool cues, broken bottles, tire irons, etc: Too varied to mean anything. Improvised weaponry doesn't have the same charisma, because it's usually dictated by availability rather than real decision making on the character's part.
I actually have a few golf clubs in the trunk of my car, not because I play, but because I found them for $5 each at a garage sale and I don't want to be unprepared if I need to discourage a raccoon or something.
5132212
I think golf clubs and punching bags are created by garage sales. You put enough clutter together and throw a sale sign on it, and golf clubs will pop out like fungus
However, improvised weaponry as a category starts being a decision fairly quickly, and says different things depending on whether you're improvising each time or just carrying around the first thing that worked out for you.
What about words?
5132237
And also where you are.
How about this for an improvised weapon? A short, spade-headed shovel: acts as a blunt weapon and maybe even a spear weapon if used right
Compound Bow: My fantasy world is better than your fantasy world.
brb getting a job and a monologue. Also, I assume you mean stuff like rapiers and other traditional duelling weapons as opposed to sport fencing blades? Because the latter are crappy enough that I'd put them under improvised weaponry.
Also, what about a staff?
5132303
"i watched too much TMNT as a kid" would be my personal read.
Boarding ax and cutlass... just sayin'.
What, nothing about P90s or M16s? Was expecting at least a Stargate or Vietnam reference
What about Slingshots?
5132327
M16 basically falls under "other assault rifle". The more detailed you get, the more a gun nut you are.
5132327
P90 just screams to me "the writer has played Call of Duty"
M16 is "I am incredibly boring and American"
Don't forget lever action shotguns/repeaters, tiny pistols (yes they're a thing), and pocket knife teens.
This reads a bit much about white characters with these guns. Latin American novellas and movies have a few different types as well, like how Galil and ACE rifles are more commonly associated with security or militia types (AKs are more seen as middle eastern, and some people be outright racist in their media like that) Also, revolvers have different character descriptions on their own depending on how long the rifling is. Snub nose, they going to die in an attack or they're about to protect their friend after an attack (Carlton in Bel-Air).
5132250
See, that feels less improvised, and more of the "I did plan on this day coming" category.
5132303
Well, yes, the rich generally also have a support staff.
5132849 How so?
5132859
Because you've just now planned ahead on how to use it as a weapon.
5132862 Eh, somewhat, I've recently learned that the spade end of the shovel can be sharp and dangerous, similarly to a spear
5132880
It's been done
5132904 Huh...didn't know THAT
Nothing personnel, kid. Hehe.
5132256
I am Katniss Everdeen
5132214
Like the trolleys in Reaper Man
Insanely accurate but very funny
Holy fuck am I bookmarking this.
marry me pls
This line didn't get enough love.