Forums » RP Discussion » Character Creation

So I’m in the process of creating a handful of characters. I like to get the very basics filled out and finish them up as I roleplay more. It helps because sometimes I just don’t fall in love with a character and they were great in an rp, but I don’t want to see them anymore. I also love to give my characters middle names, like I don’t know why but they need them. Also I noticed that my characters almost always are not straight and I feel like that has to do something with me being queer.

So I hope you enjoyed my senseless rambling.

Same. Just look at my line up. Most of em have middle names.

I dont think there is anything particularly wrong with characters sexuality matching your own. I only play hetero characters whether they are male or female because I am hetero. I think its because its something we are more familiar with that helps us get into the heads of characters when we know certain aspects about them that reflect ourselves.
For instance, I am a bit of an abrasive, strong willed woman; but I can still be very submissive and romantic, softhearted, compassionate. I really dislike playing mousy, clueless female characters so most all of my female characters have personality quirks much like myself.

Thats not to say that my characters are all exactly like me~ they are all very different. Instead of middle names, when I build characters I sit down and consider their likes, dislikes.. how they might respond in a verity of situations.. what do they like to wear? do they bite their lip when they are thinking about something? what are they obsessed about? My characters dont always end up with middle names, I think its because my dad in real life dosent actually have one so im open to a verity of possibilities. but for me? Its taking all that and making the magic happen in that first post and they blossom from their foundation into their own person.

I hope you have fun building your characters. I end up story-boarding all mine on pinterest anymore xD

I like giving my characters middle names, i think it helps kinda.. make them feel a bit more real. most people have middle names after all. I also like to think about whether there's any significance to their names or not.

I have very few female characters and this is something that bothers me because I feel like it's a major weakness on my part to struggle to play women. I try, but something just doens't "click" and it's frustrating.

But I also have not thaaaat many straight characters lol. That'd be my big ol' not straightness showing up hah.

I admit that I have a fair few characters who exist because they were created to fill a niche. Either they were inspired by a challenge or a complaint someone laid down (eg: "Why are there so few black vampire characters?" "I wish people played truely alien aliens" and so on) or they were created because I needed a certain SORT of character for something and they er... got away from me.
Some of the characters I have the most fun playing started out life as NPCs in other rps and just sorta... grew from there lol.

Whoops?

YEs, I seem to creat a character to fill a niche. Usually its in an RP where an NPC is needed, then....

▲ that happens ▲




On the subject of character creation using all the tools we have here in RP Repository, I can't understand why an icon photo is not used on so many really well done character pages. Seeing a big grey question mark in the middle of a beautiful template with lots of goos bio and history and description information sort of ruins the asthetics of a page. I'm not saying a faceclaim needs to be used, but why not fill in the question mark with some design or floral or scenery of some sort? Roleplaying with a question mark doesn't really do it for me. Just my 2¢ on it.

I would love to hear from some of you who do leave the icon as the default grey ? on your characters why you choose to do so?

I usually don't mark what my character's sexual preference is, because I honestly don't know where they'd fit most of the time.

Now some OC's I do know what their sexual preference is. But even when they do, and I put it down, for the most part people ignore it.

I've had someone want to rp with a shifter of mine, who he decided to put in a same sex relation.

Now up front I want it clear: I have nothing against same sex couples.

But that OC of mine was, and is, straight. Nothing came out of it though, for reasons I won't go into.

The one thing I also dislike, is people who just assume without asking me what my OC's sexuality is.

I remember back on aniroleplay I ran a multi character account. Mostly of course I portrayed male OC's, because I am most comfortable with that. I lost count how many people wanted my guys in a same sex relation. I ended up tired of M/M quickly.

But getting back on topic: If you just prefer writing your OC's as not straight, because that's what you are, there is nothing wrong with it. You should write your OC's as you yourself see fit.

Now its not to say you can't still ask for opinions and such, like you are now. Just know that if you are in a disagreement with someone, it is okay to put your foot down.

I've had someone who used to nit pick the heck out of my OC's, which really messed me up for a while. One thing he nit picked me for, was that my female OC's were too much like me.

I would give examples here, but as I don't know if I can use certain words in this forum post or not, I'll avoid it. If you want to have examples feel free to PM me. The point is: I was given hassle because I don't like certain things that my OC's don't like, so I was "putting too much of myself into my OC's" supposedly.

That's my, as Shadow calls it, 2¢

I actually can’t remember the process that went into creating some of my characters. Based on the ones that exist in my profile, though, for the most part I think I either start with their story (I imagine a scenario. Who would I like to see dealing with these challenges? Why would that be interesting?) or a concept (Wouldn’t it be funny if this character’s superpower was to explode? What specifically is it that I like about magic/robots/werewolves? What if having no name meant you had no soul?) and build from there.

Their first names generally just occur to me with no special thought process involved, and I tend to use these with no further thought involved. Sometimes I’ll go out of my way to pick something particularly fitting, though. As for last names, there’s a particular process I like to use where I look at ones that start with a letter that’s as many places away from the end of the alphabet as their first name is from the beginning of the alphabet...? I don’t know why I do that. I don’t always do it. It’s just... it’s a thing.

I very rarely think about my characters’ relationship preferences, but like many of you I suspect that this is because of my own relationship preferences! It’s not important to me, so I tend not to feel like it’s important for them. Usually my storytelling priorities lie elsewhere, hahaha!

I will say that my female characters are often more likely to explore a real-life theme or deal with some kind of anxiety, and in that way I think they receive a lot of me in their creation! The male characters are more like, “Oh, I think that’s a neat character trait. Nice; all done.” I’m awful.