Forums » RP Discussion » A better word then Form

I'm making a Kelpie/Mermaid hybrid and she has three forms, problem is that the word form is so overused that I was wondering if anyone could suggest some better alternatives. I thought of using shape maybe, but that makes me think of shape shifting and two of her forms are less of taking on a different appearance, but more of a different version of her body if that makes sense. >.<

I tried the thesaurus, but form has so many different meanings that it was kind hard to find what I was looking for.

So any ideas?

I am uncertain that this is a problem -- some words are used a lot because they are useful, and have a meaning that everyone can easily understand! You wouldn't stop using a word like "and" just because you saw it a lot.

Well the main reason I started this thread was because I noticed that it was a pet peeve for some people in the rper's pet peeve thread.

Maybe instead of using the word form yo could just name the form without the word in it.

For instance, I have a shapeshifter who has three or so forms they prefer, btu they arne't caleld forms, they're called The Huntress, The Harpy, and The Mermaid. So maybe something like that?

Aspect might be a good one, perhaps configuration too. Maybe if you extended the definition of visage out to include the appearance of the entire body as opposed to just the face, that could be useful as well. Idunno, this is a hard one to think of many alternate terms for.

@Sketch That could be an idea.

@Grandfinale I could maybe sue aspect and I know its hard to find another good word. That's probably why form is so overused after all. xD

I'm not sure why that matters so much. I think Oaky was the only person in the entire thread who had a problem with that word, and it mostly seemed to stem from the overuse of the shapeshifter concept and repetitive use of the word in every single sentence. Form is a perfectly acceptable word and can be used in this very context without problem. It becomes an issue only when you use it in every single sentence in a row for an entire paragraph. In that case it doesn't even matter what you call it - form, shape, appearance - because it will be difficult to read and likely irritate some readers anyway.

I wouldn't let just one person's opinion from 2.5 years ago matter this much, personally!

I would agree with Sanne, but if you -really- don't want to use the word 'form' you could hide it in some fictional words. Find a cool sounding made up root word to mean form. Then add, either at the beginning or end, another made up string of letters for which far it is.

i.e.

"Okay, I could have sworn you were just a fish."

"I was. That was my Ilya-Ada."

"Ilada? What's that?"

"Ilya-Ada. It's ancient tongue from my people long ago. It means 'fish form'."


Note: I do this with some if my off-site things.

It's worth noting that in that example, the other person had to ask what that meant, and it had to be explained using the word that she's trying to avoid -- which is precisely why I think it's a bad idea for her to try and come up with a new word for something that everyone already easily understands using the original word just because it annoyed one person once.

Oh my goodness! Katia, the use of the word "form" is perfectly acceptable for a character with the ability to take different shapes. You have my personal and official blessing to use the word "form" to describe your character.

You have to understand- This thread was created during a time that I frequented another (chatroom based) Roleplaying website. You could make a character profile in seconds and most of the time all it took was a name and some anime fan-art you found online. It was filled with characters that had no character at all! They were just a bunch of powers and a body someone found online. This would make it very frustrating to find a worthwhile RP partner. The most frequent offenders were the "forms" characters. Typically these were demons or "neko" style characters with some human traits and some "other" traits.

My peeve wasn't with the idea of forms themselves, but with the character's forms taking up all of the profile.

A sentence or two would be dedicated to the character's tragic backstory and how they came across the powers, and then maybe a sentence more about the character's likes and dislikes. After that, the entirety of the profile is just "Forms forms forms!" My issue wasn't that forms are annoying or bad, but that a character was created that had no depth and only wanted to show off their powers.

To quote the post itself: The focus of my peeve is the one-dimensional nature of such characters, not the forms themselves. The point is that the word "form" is perfectly acceptable and that there is no reason not to use it. The idea of a character with multiple forms is what I think really peeved me then, and now with such a wonderful RP community here at the RPR, I don't really have a reason to complain or dislike anyone's characters.

Honestly, it's just a personal preference of mine anyway. Your characters are yours, not mine, or anyone else's. If my approval (or anyone else's) is what you're seeking, I'd tell you this: It doesn't matter what kind of characters you make up, as long as you're having fun! Fun is the top priority for a RP, yes? I'd say create your characters for you, find people who like those characters, and play with them; Not the other way around.

You are so creative, and your characters are very special. I don't want you to be afraid to make a character because I've expressed some kind of issue with one aspect of a character I met one time!

I'm tickled that my rant several years ago has got you so worried. Like Sanne said, I was the only one in the thread who apparently expressed issue with the word. You are absolutely a-ok!

I concur that the word 'form' by itself is fine, especially if you are writing something short and technical like the headings on a character profile, but if a word is bothering you because of overuse in RP, consider finding ways to write without needing to use it. One way you can do that is absolutely by taking Gamers' suggestion above, but you can do it with regular English, too.

Just to be clear, as a general rule, nouns should be simple and easy to understand, but actions should be described with color--so calling these anatomical configurations 'forms' is more than acceptable for clarity (i.e. "I will take on my sea-form now"), but maybe you will want to look at other ways to write something like "All of a sudden, she took on her horse form, dropping the jar. She whinnied in distress." For example, "All of a sudden, her hands were hooves, and the jar shattered on the tiles. She whinnied in distress." Obviously, the latter example requires context to be completely understandable, but it's more interesting even by itself.

Above all, though, don't worry too much about what other people think and just have fun!

Thanks guys! I really appreciate all the help, and I guess I'll just stick to using the word form. xD