Banter/Fun
The thing you picture regardless of what the writer says
The MMC is always tall. 6’4”+
Regardless of what the writer has included the MMC I see in my head is always 6’4” or taller. I come from a family of giants, so I am unable to perform the mental gymnastic to picture a ‘tall’ hero as anything less than that.
So what’s the thing that you always picture no matter what a writer says?
Just curious :)
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u/January1171Climb aboard the cheese train! Now departing 4 oof o god station1d ago
Honestly no matter what the author describes the MCs are mostly faceless blobs to me 🤣
Omg, most of the time, this is me as well. And when a book gets a film adaptation, I usually base the comparison on the characters’ identities and personalities. Like, “He doesn’t really look like a college student studying this particular major, does he?”
Same!! I wonder if that's why i'm burnt out on the overly hot and sexy people. 🤔 the only time i find myself really trying to pay attention to their looks is when i'm reading monster/alien stuff 👀
Yassss. When I saw the concept fan casting on Goodreads and people throwing fits over who played who in the movies based on written works it just blew my mind . A whole new world was opened to me that day
Same. This is why covers can be really helpful or unhelpful. 😅 For example, I love the covers of the Midnight in Scotland series by Elisa Braden because they are illustrations that fit the descriptions of the main characters(!) I would stop reading to go back and look at the cover multiple times. Coincidentally, for OP, the MMCs in this series (at least books 2-4, I can't remember for book 1) are taller than 6ft4. Highly recommend them for anyone who likes HR.
Ha! Me too! My long term partner has a beard (and always has) and I realized recently that I'm just mentally putting his face on all the mmc I read about, beard included!
Same. Just read the first three books in the Winston Brothers series by Penny Reid, all beard heavy beard themed. Just presto chango clean shaven MMCs except for some reason Cleatus in my head was just Zach Galifianakis including the beard...
I can picture a full beard far better than a solo stashe. I’m with you, not my cup of tea! I think it’s partly my age. My dad had a beard for my childhood and only permanently ditched it when I graduated high school and the grey started aging him.
I also do the age minimum!! for me I don't imagine anything less than 30 and even that feels a bit young to me now. I also never picture anyone as blonde even if they are explicitly described that way lol
Pet peeve of mine - when people add the word man to things that are perceived to be too feminine. It’s a bun. You don’t call it a woman bun when a woman puts her hair up, drives me crazy.
I have a few attractiveness "types" and I sort people into them no matter how they look in the book. Yahya Abdul Mateen, Denzel Washington, Danielle Brooks, or Kerry Washington. Sometimes a Jake Gyllenhaal.
I also picture Jake. After seeing him in Love & Other Drugs, it was over for everyone else. Sexy mouth and kind eyes 👌🏾. And if the mmc is blonde I picture Matthew Noszka.
If the author is very serious about driving home that he has pale skin and dark hair, he becomes Jake to me. But if the author makes an MMC blonde, he's turning into a Black actor cause I just don't crush on blonds ever 😂
This is what I do too. I read the initial description, cast one of my favorite actors, and ignore any future descriptions that might disagree with my initial casting for the role.
I always shrink the height difference. FMC is never shorter than the MMC’s chin. Usually I picture even less. I don’t want to imagine neck pain when I don’t have to.
It’s true! My husband is a foot taller than me and I cannot just kiss him whenever I want to like the women is these books. I can kiss his armpit, but that’s about all. If I want his lips I have to give him the sexy stink eye, yank his head down to my level, or climb him.
That's so true, some of the height differences are insane. Idk how author even imagines that. Like can you believe a 4'9 with 6'4, I am sorry but I freaking can't.
One of my friends in school was somewhere sub-5ft due to a dwarfism-related condition (I think?) and dated a guy nearly 6ft, and he literally had to pick her up for them to be able to kiss. So it does happen, but it's super inconvenient for everyone involved and does nothing for the health of one's back regardless.
He'd also get dirty looks for dating her, despite being a year younger, which sounded like a really fun time :/
Yes! I don't care what actual height either is, but I can't imagine the tiny woman with the really big guy. Aside from pondering on how they'll fit together, how would they not both suffer from constant and severe neck pain?
Oh yeah, in the movie The Kissing Booth, Joey King is 5’4” and Jacob Elordi is 6’5”. When she stands next to him and puts her arm around him, her head is like at his waist. (That might be an exaggeration but I could’ve sworn one scene looked like that.)
It’s so weird when the woman is so short that she looks like a child standing next to the man.
Yep me too!! Just personal preference but for me no more than a foot height difference, if it's written differently I usually picture fmc taller, sorry petite queens but I'm tall and like a tall fmc 😋
Speaking of height, I read a lot of alien/monster and the MMC is always humongous compared to FMC (like her chin is at his belly button) and that’s fine, but I picture him as a reasonable amount taller than her in general and the same height during sexy times (otherwise it breaks my brain when he’s got full penetration and his mouth on her boob - whose back bends that much? He’d have to jackknife his spine.)
But I only have a hazy way of following character descriptions - the movie in my mind’s eye isn’t very detailed - and I think that’s why it bothers me not at all with the non-human MMCs. Third eye and fangs? Sure - I only remember to picture it when it’s mentioned.
There is a whole class of vaguely outdoorsy, nice MMCs that my brain just supplies the Washington Post TikTok guy for. I have literally no clue why. I don’t consider his appearance at all when I’m watching his news videos (mostly due to the existential dread), but if a man has a kayak and a dog my brain is like “THAT’S THE GUY”
Yes! Like he’s not bad looking or anything but he is not who I would have deliberately picked? And also, I literally don’t know that I’ve even seen an image of him outside.
If it’s a mafia romance , then the MMc automatically has the face of Michael Morrone . That’s the only way for me to not think real mafia boss actually looks like Pablo Escobar 🫠
No matter how the writer describes the hairstyle of the FMC, I always visualize the hair down and straight in the style of Alice in wonderland lol. The hair color changes to whatever is said but it’s always down with a bow on top for some freaking reason :3
Pretty much all living spaces are one of the places I've lived in before. Sometimes my childhood home, sometimes the house we moved to when in my teens, and sometimes my college apartment. There are a few exceptions where I've pictured my friend's apartment or a neighbor's house or even a completely new space that my brain created, but it's usually one of the first 3 places I lived in.
Yes! I also have a really hard time picturing home layouts, so my brain has created one "penthouse" layout, one "mansion" layout, one "regular apartment" layout, one "family home" layout, with very few exceptions. All are based on a house of someone I know who I visit often, like friends or family members. But never based on my own home--though the apartment layout is based on the apartment I lived in after college.
I think I’ve always thought men look more attractive with shorter hair, so that’s my default. Then, I get confused when I read, “his hair brushed the top of his shoulders” or “he tied back his hair.” There’s a solid minute of me thinking, “huh? Tied back what hair?” before I remember the guy was supposed to have long hair.
Same! I usually picture MMCs with straight hair vs. curly or wavy too. Nothing wrong with curly hair, but I think my crush on Devon Sawa when I was a kid and Ben Barnes as an adult (à la The Punisher season 1) made it mandatory that MMCs have straight hair cut neatly in a specific way and it be either side-parted or slicked back (but then comes loose and half falls across his forehead/face whenever he's ruffled in some way).
Usually nothing in particular for characters. Like someone else it's more or less blobish.
But my brain likes to mess with me sometimes. If I've been watching a lot of a certain medium like a tv show, a particularly memorable movie, or even content creators - that's who I end up picturing. Even if they don't match the character descriptions whatsoever. It can get weird. I end picturing that entomology dude instead of someone who's supposed to look like Chris Evans or something 🤣. A sweet college romance maybe it's not so weird. Alpha hole mafia boss character - I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Luckily my brain does not supply people I actually know as visual fodder like that. I don't think I could live. I'd die of embarrassment
Sometimes I try to ignore the ages of the characters. I just finished {Bratva Butcher by T.J. Maguire} and the MMC is 54 and I literally aged him down because he’s older than my dad 😅
Or if the FMC is like 18 and I age her up almost 10 years or something.
I’m 59 so I automatically age everyone up. And don’t ask me to read the academy/college books because my daughter is 18. Even though she and her friends are no shrinking violets or pure innocents, I just can’t wrap my brain around some of the sh*t they do. 🙄 My daughter is like WTH if I tell her about something, she’s like people my age aren’t like that!
Oh god yes on the thick thighs, for the mmc for me. If an author tries to slip in a description of the mmc being slender or lithe or similar, get outta here that man has thick legs the fmc is gonna drool over.
no matter how many times the author describes the FMC, i’m gonna imagine myself . especially fantasy novels??? oh i loveeee visualizing that i’m the one on dragon back with the wind in my hair.
I see what I read in third person pov regardless of the views being first person. Most of the time my pov will just be like hidden spy camera or something. I like it though, I can even change the angle in my head.
Ilya from Heated Rivalry is blonde. I don’t care what Rachel Reid thinks.
Nobody is 5ft6 and 115lbs. Unless the character in the book is going through a serious illness and that’s part of it then they just aren’t 115lbs. They’re a normal healthy weight for their height.
Clothes…whenever anyone is wearing something that has a really long and in-depth description I am not envisioning that. They’re wearing a nice evening dress I’ve recently seen in a magazine or something
I don’t know what 6ft4 looks like. About 1% of people are 6ft4 and as a 5ft3 girlie that is just too much. Everyone is 6ft1 max.
Don’t bother putting models on the front of your books. I will decide what he looks like not you (who spent serious time and energy into describing him) Their personality tells me what they look like
I’m the opposite, I refuse to let MMC be taller than 6’0” and FMC be shorter than 5’4”, unless he’s some monster/alien. And even then I usually shrink the height difference.
Also no beards. Ever. If author mentions MMC having a beard too much, to a point where I can’t pretend he’s clean-shaven, I’ll drop a book. It’s one of very few things I just can’t overlook in MMC’s looks.
And I usually picture FMC wearing pants even if author puts her in a dress, unless it’s some fancy ball.
I will only use my OTPs as the visuals when I read, and I used to just change the descriptions while reading, but somewhere along the line I started specifically looking for books that had characters that looked like my OTPs, because it was less mental work and seemed less rude to the authors to bypass their descriptions entirely.
I think it’s because of the hundreds of books I’ve read that have a MMC in the cover, they’ve kind of blended together into one boring same-ish looking side every time that stopped doing anything for me. So now I always imagine some version of my husband? Dad bod with a grey beard.
I use the likeness of this guy on instagram as the starting point for most MCs and then chanhe hair or whatever accordingly. He's over 6ft, covered in tattoos and jacked so he tends to fit the standard look a lot of the books go for
I hardly have imagination of characters faces, like if author is describing scene then in my mind detail of that scene would merge creating it with detailed but its focus would never go to face like if character are kissing my mind would only have picture of lips (both characters) or if they went further then there yk like bodies in clothing doing things. If its describing fmc or mmc then hardly any picture but if mmc is somehow saving fmc from burning building then whole scenario will create but no focus on there physical aspect
In the {Seaworthy by K L Noone} series and its spinoff, the MMCs are Tom Holland for Colby and Anthony Mackie for Jason in my head. This is almost 100% different from the description of either of them— Tom Holland has similar hair to Colby, and Anthony Mackie has the correct eye color for Jason, and that’s about it. But my brain has decided to insist.
I am just the opposite I like a MMC who is 5'8" to 5'10" and no matter how the author describes them I will picture them somewhere between Wolverine (from the animated series) and Gimli from LOTRs.
I just want to second your 'family of giants' comment ha. I am 5'10", and my brothers and all of my male cousins are over 6' - my brothers in particular are 6'5" and 6'7". And it kills me sometimes reading descriptions in books because they'll talk about 6' or 6'2-4" like it's unreal and 6'6" like they're mountains and I'm like... those are normal heights?? So whenever books feature a FMC talking about the MMC being *soooooo tallllllll* I'm picturing someone like 7' for that reason (and because I conversely can't compute what it means to be short myself; all these dainty 5'4" FMCs are mysteries) LOL.
I tend to picture my husband, especially when the book is heavy with BDSM/Primal themes (and the MMC is extremely devoted/nurturing and protective), as my husband is also my Dom...and I've got quite the crush on this man. .
Thank you, I feel that way every day. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary and we both agree that we are more crazy about each other now...that is a blessing indeed.
We just celebrated our 19th anniversary. We married two weeks before my 40th birthday and he’s nine years younger than me. Our daughter was born with three rare syndromes and the last 18 years have been very stressful. Then David got sick several years ago with an unknown illness. We’re fighting hard for him, though. I’m so blessed to have him and to be loved so much.
Congratulations on 19 years! It's so hard when our lives take turns we never saw coming and the challenges feel and are enormous. I stand with you in solidarity. We've had our own trials as well, but there's something to be said about facing them with the love of your life. 💓
I pray that your husband's health improves, may all roads open for his treatment and best case scenarios appear. 🕯️
I was recently reading a book where the MMC was written as- book man is wiry, lean and there's other people who's taller than him. He sounds scrawny, and I'm like nope. It's Jensen Ackles instead 😂
I got about 80% of the way through a sci-fi before realizing that the author Never described the MMC as having a Darth Vader style cape and that I had imagined one all on my own the whole time.
MMC in my head is always Josh Hutcherson as Peeta in The Hunger Games (sometimes blond, sometimes brunette) because I've been in love with him since I was 12 and I'm unable to find any other man attractive lolllll.
I pretend that all MCs, regardless of gender or time period, have no body hair. No shame to all y'all who love it, I just can't. So they get a mental wax from the neck down, lol.
I mean… I am ALWAYS the FMC lol but in the phase of life. also if it’s a high school romance i’m not really picturing high school aged kids. or ifs like im watching a movie of myself as a high schooler with high school people haha. it’s very hard to explain. oh. also. the MMC always has dark hair. and i’m thrown EVERY time they mention the MMC’s hair color and it’s not dark haha
I always imagine the fmc to have similar features to me. I've actually DNR some books cause they kept mentioning physical features too much, and it was ruining the vibes for me 😭
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u/January1171 Climb aboard the cheese train! Now departing 4 oof o god station 1d ago
Honestly no matter what the author describes the MCs are mostly faceless blobs to me 🤣