avalaughs | What Draws You To Your Character?

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What Draws You To Your Character?

Hey, it's a not-meme.

One thing I always find fascinating in this hobby is what draws people to the characters they play so this is me asking you that.

What drew you to your characters? What do you find fun about them? What aspects of them do you find easy or difficult?

For OCs, talk about how you came up with the idea for them and why you wanted to give them a spin in this hobby.

Read, converse, ask questions!

You can answer in list form, prose form, whatever form you're most comfortable with and with as much or as little detail as you want.

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The two pithy one liners to describe my general lean is "I like broken things" and "Surprisingly well adjusted all things considered." I don't generally lean toward playing characters who actively want to cause harm, but more characters who have gotten so lost in themselves they cause harm by accident.

Someone looking for a way out of their own dark woods. Generally I also like having a better grounding in the characters social desires and establishments than their action/adventure chops. Which is why I play from a lot more mundane dramas than I do action adventure anime/manga/movies.

Honestly that sort of internal struggle and drama can be a lot of fun to play with and think about when it comes to how a character interacts with the world and the people in it.

OH SHIT I LOVE THIS OK HAHA

Jongdae was originally just a shitpost character lmao. I used to play a very serious, very buttoned up character back in a time where our MMO RP had a very large and active twitter RP community (as in all the OCs in the game and even the company-played lore characters had IC twitter accounts) and I wanted a character to shitpost in that environment and so I came up with Jongdae.

Also a friend of mine at the time wanted to RP specifically as our characters working for a faction you can't technically be a part of (Orochi) but they could be ICly and I didn't want to play like an agent type deal so I ended up coming up with the whole test subject bit and it kind of just blew up from there. I really like playing characters who are a bit of a blank slate and get to explore. He's difficult only when I can't really find the energy for his voice and occasionally when I dig into more emotional stuff with him but mostly because his backstory can get pretty heavy and that's more an OOC concern of mine that I don't want to make other people have to put up with that much haha. I have to make sure I have a clear green light before I'll unload all the traumatic deep lore on someone lmao.

Which brings me to Ledo because he's almost exactly the same way! For a long time I didn't think I could RP Ledo and Jongdae both because I thought they were too similar (because they look alike and both have that "no real world experiences" backstory thing) but I'm an idiot and they're really? ??? NOT AT ALL ALIKE ???

I have a lot of fun thinking about how he'll perceive something or react to something new and even more than Jongdae he is just... purely the product of his CR and experiences and I think that's what I have the most fun with with this kind of character and I especially love getting to have CR with unusual characters or odd situations I never could have imagined or planned for! I also really like fight-y boys with a good heart ~~who may or may not have committed some atrocities~~ hehe.

Which brings me to my latest which is Izō who I literally in the past week or so was just like ???? why am I so obsessed with this idiot. Because he didn't seem like my type AT ALL other than the fact that my original draw to him was that I liked his look and I love asshole types lmao. Digging into his story though I can see where the hooks are for me. It's super fun just to write how he is with his attitude and how he speaks — which with the newness of his voice is still tricky for me and I second guess myself CONSTANTLY — but also I'm looking forward to getting to explore his issues (trust issues... betrayals... etc.) and also I can't lie, I have a soft spot for self-destructive types and people who cope badly as that basically describes every character I've ever played but Izō is especially both of those things.

Give me all the trauma boys hhhhhh.

What actually compelled me to RP this guy was frustration. Dragon Quest games always feature voiceless, "blank" heroes that you are supposed to project yourself onto. This was hard in DQ11 since it is very much the Luminary's story and his history and relationships form the backbone of the plot.

But he doesn't speak.

The game does show him talk as a child in flashbacks and the way the party reacts to him indicates a character who could be amusingly playful and mischievous but gravely serious when needed. Since the game didn't want to explore this, I decided I would!

Playing with his voice, imagining how his personality works based on the (substantial) hints given in the game, etc is very fun but also the hardest part of playing him. I want to do him justice and it can be complicated when everything about a character BUT the nuances of his personality are known!

Gets especially fun when you play through it at various stages of this internal struggle. I've played Maya in the direct aftermath of what 'broke' her, and after she's recovered a bit, and after events broke her all over again.

Having that vivid throughline of what's in their head is really vital to me picking up characters.

I feel like many fans of Yuber had the same journey:

1) find him mysterious in Suikoden I/II
2) when we see his face have the inevitable reaction of "Oh, no, he's hot!"...
3) ...and he's so cold and badass!
4) then you win a fight against him and he complains loudly and calls you a cheater. And you laugh.

Honestly though if all there was to Yuber was "murder and mayhem" I wouldn't have found him compelling enough to pick up. What makes him compelling is wondering why he is the way he is. This is a question his canon never fully answers because it kinda...stopped (he's like a flip of the Luminary. Everything about the Luminary's past and his whole deal is known but his personality is blank. Yuber's personality and motives are known but his past is mostly a black box).

From in game clues and dev interviews we know: He's very old, he has been chased across worlds by Pesmerga (whose name comes from Peshmerga meaning "to stand in front of death"), he is a living embodiment of chaos, he has a True Rune that is the Rune of Chaos, he HATES True Runes, he feels that killing the Runes will end his own suffering, he feels that killing Rune Bearers will end their suffering, when he kills he is sure to do it quickly but gruesomely so his victims feel immense fear but never get the chance to feel pain (this bit is less true in the manga, though).

Somewhere in that mess is a very, VERY interesting character. In RP I like to explore these sides of him while also of course making him gross, terrible and cruel. Because I love playing villains and enjoy giving other players some drama to bounce off of. I've played villains for ages.

The most difficult part of Yuber is always wondering if I'm doing it right. I am not new to Suikoden but I am very new to playing him. Relying so much on deep lore so I can avoid pure headcanon as much as possible is also awkward. Who knows if half that stuff was ever going to actually make it into the games? At the same time, though, it's very fun to think about.

Edited 2021-07-15 22:30 (UTC)

Look trauma boys are the best, just saying.

And I appreciate that Jongdae started as a shitpost character. Honestly my Warrior of Light OC from FFXIV started the same way, lol.

It can be important to me too!

Less so with uhm. This one.

But the Luminary has a very noticeable emotional journey in his canon despite being silent so working with different points in the timeline can be very interesting.

I kiiind of fell into rping Claude by accident! I was initially interested in FE3H with the intention of playing the Black Eagles (Edelgard's) route first since I didn't know much of anything about the game and she seemed the most appealing to me... and then I actually started the game and found Claude immediately likeable, and had to pick his house instead. He's very funny, laidback and witty, and I enjoy characters who never seem to take anything too seriously -- probably not a surprise for those who remember I played Nero (Devil May Cry) here before. They're fun to write and to dunk on, and I hope the threads that make me smile or laugh do the same for others too :')

That said without getting too bogged down in the story or lore of 3H I also found the route to be my favourite overall having played the rest, and I genuinely admire Claude's goals and core beliefs. He's sketchy and manipulative, but he's also deeply idealistic and committed to doing what he believes is the right thing for everyone. Given my own background (I've studied politics and have an MA in International Relations), it was probably only a matter of time before I actually wrote a politician myself... GROSS.

ANYWAY despite all those things I love about Claude, and I would say he's definitely my favourite, there are plenty of others I love in the 3H cast too! I very nearly apped Mercedes here instead as she's a close runner-up fave, but I was talked into bringing Claude.

If I had to pick what I find difficult about playing him, it's mostly that he feels the need to be up in everyone's business, always scheming to make sure things turn out in his favour and learning All The Things. It's fun to play but also a lot to keep on top of.

Tsuna

So, basically, way back when KHR was big, I dabbed with picking up Tsuna. But I wasn't exactly prepared to pick up a Shonen Protag at the time and kind of fell off the KHR train (mostly because I'm bad at keeping up with scanlations). Fast forward to I guess about a year ago? (what is time even?) I'm watching the KHR anime (all 203 episodes of it), and decide to re-read the manga and actually finish it this time, and Tsuna came back.

I love shonen, and there's something about Tsuna that just delights me. He's not super gung-ho about his lot in life, he's a weenie, and the perpetual straight-man to the chaos that he faces. But there's still an undercurrent of leadership and a willingness to protect his friends that people react to and that I love. I like characters who have those layered facets that show up when the chips are down, and Tsuna's one of those.

And also just the fact that KHR started as a gag manga which means I'm allowed to play with the ridiculous, which is another thing that I love. One day we'll touch on more of the serious aspects.

Din

And we go from Shonen Protag to Very Tired Adult. And the fact that I like dudes in armour (thanks RvB). But seriously, the fact that Din is able to contrast Tsuna so well is nice and gives me a fun balance.

The Mandalorian kind of re-ignited my love of Star Wars and there's just something really fascinating about this loner character who ends up looking after a kid and wandering the galaxy having adventures and making friends/allies along the way. I like how he's begrudgingly helpful, can basically make friends with anyone because of that, and just gives off this aura of really needing a nap but still going to continue on. I didn't really intend for him to show up as a muse, but there he was and he's been fun to play.

It's a little difficult since he's a cagey character who doesn't take off his armour and is reluctant to give out a lot of information about himself, but hopefully I'm able to get across the little details. One day, someone will learn his name.

What MMO does Jongdae come from? That's wild to me that there were official twitter rp accounts.

I have a lot of answers to this because I love Kadoc for a lot of reasons! I love pathetic characters, and he definitely is one of those, and I love characters with complicated and flawed motivations; I love characters who are so caught up in their own shit and the situation they grew up in that they go off the rails onto a completely unacceptable way forward that they can't extract themselves from without serious intervention, especially if they have some self-awareness of this and know they need help. Kadoc specifically feels like a callback to some themes in earlier Fate/ installments that I've also really enjoyed and played with in RP or wanted to play with, but haven't found as easy to dive into because they were more extreme and difficult to bring into a game setting. He's like a somewhat more nuanced and less problematic version of some earlier concepts I liked, lol.

Maybe even above all that, though, one of my favorite narrative types is the exploration of "what comes next" after a story ends in some dramatic and final way. Kadoc's story is very much that one: the whole point of him is that he was a "protagonist" who, from his perspective, had been set up for years to become a main character and live a worthwhile existence, and then he's unceremoniously killed the second before the legend begins, and his entire "story" ends up being a pointless anticlimax. And when he's given the chance to rectify that, even though it involves aligning himself with an unforgivable cause, he can't not take it. It's both completely understandable and completely beyond the pale in terms of betrayal, and Kadoc himself is aware of this and has complicated feelings accordingly. And then after that . . . he ends up repeatedly in the position of "this is where my story should have ended, but it's not yet," and he keeps having to decide how to move forward from breaking points he was expecting to finally be It. He's a guy who died and made some fucked up decisions to go on living, and now it turns out he's just going to keep going on living, despite his expectations. Him learning how to cope with that and deciding what he wants to do every time he's cut off from the path he was on and forced to choose a new one is fascinating to me both in canon and in roleplay. I love characters having to deal with the fallout of their own stories, the things that happen after the closing scene.

I also like characters with piercings!! 👌

OKAY I'M BACK HOURS LATER TO ADD SOME MORE I MISSED

Kadoc is a blast to play—he's actually, while not entirely outside my usual type, somewhat outside it, because believe it or not I tend to play a lot of stupid and/or egotistical characters with supreme confidence, unearned or otherwise. Kadoc is the opposite of that! But it's fun sometimes to play the one who kind of needs to be dragged along because generally I love playing off that type, and also Kadoc has enough nuance to his personality that he has checks in place for most of his harder to play traits, in a sense. He's diffident and withdrawn but also cares about people's wellbeing; he's extremely passive in some senses but is very driven to achieve goals when he has them; he's prickly and pessimistic and gloomy but is self-aware of this and dislikes it as a character trait, so he can and will self-correct. It's nice to have a character who has those aspects but in a way where they can add flavor to threads and guide his actions rather than standing as roadblocks to CR and development. I can get away with most things with him because while he struggles with his issues a lot, he's not static or set in his ways. He's aware and developing and capable of making the right choice (for fun CR, lol).

I think the hardest part of playing him is dealing with Fate/ canon shit lmao, like, it's rough on me because throughout this franchise I am almost always a fan of the Masters over the Servants (though I have and play fave Servants too!) but playing a Master/Mage means having some level of understanding of how the 'verse works, to varying degrees. And Kadoc is the kind of mage who did actually grow up in mage society and is very studied, and would understand all this obscure, opaque lore shit, and I am having to constantly stop and look things up and process them through his perspective. It is a HUGE and complicated universe and even when it comes to simple questions like "what kinds of spells can Kadoc even do outside of Avalon, when he has his normal magic": I don't fuckin know! Who knows! Magic is hard in Fate! In that sense it's nice playing him nerfed because I don't have to worry about it here, but when it comes up in conversation or narration, I cry,

Edited 2021-07-16 04:20 (UTC)

So, the short version is that I've been writing/developing Darin for almost twenty years.

When I first created him, he was a shameless DBZ ripoff because that's what was big in states at the time. DBZ was airing on Toonami and anime was becoming mainstream. At the time, my parents were going through a really REALLY messy divorce and I was twelve years old and got caught in the middle due to bad choices on both of my parents' parts. As much as I loved DBZ at the time, it wasn't exactly known for its super strong writing or interesting plot beats but I always loved the characters that always got back up, no matter how badly they were beaten down. At the time, I needed characters like that in my life and Darin became that: a mantra that no matter how bad things got, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. That someday things will get better.

His backstory fluctuated a lot in the early days. He obviously went through the dreaded DeviantArt OC growing pains. As I got older and got more into the rp hobby and writing in general, I'd always return to Darin to flesh out his story and his world more and more. Eventually, I hit on the concept of 'perspective' and how something can seem one way to so many people, but all it takes is one person to see the other side of the situation to create a bridge. Most people are always so quick to judge or to see what other people see that most people don't even bother to look at other facets of things, and that's where I started putting my focus on Darin; someone who not only got back up no matter what life hit him with, but always sought to find the perspective that others missed. It wound up giving him such a unique and insightful thought process, even though so many people can write him off as an idiot. And that's what I wound of focusing on and fleshing out.

Truth be told, I've always wanted to tell Darin's story in some form of medium. When I was a kid, it was a video game, but now, I'd love to find a way to animate his story. But for me, rping with him has really helped me flesh out smaller details about him, as well as throw him into a variety of situations that just normally never would have arisen.

In the end, what started out as a coping mechanism had evolved into something much more. He's still near and dear to my heart and I don't know if I would have made it through all of those painful years without being able to create him and remind myself that, no matter what, I just have to keep getting back up and eventually I'll find my happy ending.

btw if you haven't yet, i *highly* recommend the NHK drama Ryoumaden, as Izo is a central character in it and it gives even more context on his life and his relationships (though it takes at least a *few* small liberties with historical fact).

The Secret World / Secret World Legends. At one point there were accounts for the heads of the different secret societies and also the Buzzing which is the literal hive mind that your character's a part of if they become a Bee and sometimes before an event or something would launch the Buzzing would tweet some cryptic message or picture especially back when they did some reveals via like augmented reality games and stuff. IT WAS SO COOL and a shame Funcom blew it with the IP but I guess it's a nice sandbox to play in porting it elsewhere like this lmao

I have not but THANKS VERY MUCH for the recommendation I'll have to check it out! ~~And probably will very soon since I've just been consuming all the content lately.~~ Do you know if it might've been based on the Ryotaro Shiba 'RYOMA!' novel? I know FGO and some other stuff that's had fictionalised versions of them have pulled a lot from that novel so I wouldn't be surprised!

I'm just going to be honest and say it;

I like playing characters with shitty pasts and who are either closed off because of it (Shadow) or huge shitlords (Chara). It's really nothing deeper than that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%8Dmaden it's not based on that novel, though, but it was hugely popular (and masaharu fukuyama's performance as ryouma had informed a ton of interpretations since then, including Fate's)

you'll need some VPN magic to get it working on the legal places you can watch it, but lacking that, there's uh. less savory places to find it, but that comes with a "browse at your own risk" warning.

Number 1-4 are so true haha!

I love LOVE how much you've researched and dedication for his character. We haven't had much chance to RP together yet but I do look forward to doing so again in the future.

I wish there was more info about Pesmerga urgh.

Isn't it a fun surprise when you engage with a story thinking you'll pick up one character and end up picking another that suits even better?

(splitting these into three top levels so as they don't just blend together)

so like with most characters i've RP'd over the years, the first impression of Gareth's design and personality is what drew me too her. she reminded me immediately of a character i'd really loved in Suikoden III (Cecile) and i decided to look further into her.

well. cue the combination of type-moon's panache for depressing stories with the tragedy of arthurian lore and suddenly i was even more invested in her because i am nothing if not a sucker for deeply tragic characters that managed their positivity despite all the hardship they face. but of course Nasu didn't stop there, as i also read the Fate Grand Order; Camelot Zero short story she's a featured character in and that just twisted the knife even further. without spoiling too much i'll just say there's a reason Gareth wasn't featured in the Camelot Singularity proper. oof.

Gareth's sense of self, her identity as a Knight and what that means to her, her ultimate goal of "being a knight who protects people", all provide for some fascinating writing opportunities. and tbh it can be difficult sorting through the tragic bits to strike that balance between her chipper personality and the background radiation of her despair. but god, it's been worth it, especially in this game. i'm super grateful for the opportunities her CR has provided to explore with her.

and of course she's part of the ongoing FGO story even in japan right now and is sending up death flags so i guess this is a Prepare To Cry Edition.

Edited 2021-07-15 23:43 (UTC)

Oh, awesome! I was gonna read it anyway since it's available in English and hope that one day they'll translate the one about Izō himself the same author wrote but I'll take any and all adaptations! I feel like I'm thriving considering with my last canon character we're really out here sifting for crumbs because there's very little to work with.

Good to know on the VPN angle too!

(splitting these into three top levels so as they don't just blend together)

so Guilty Gear came out when i was in middle school and deeply obsessed with samurai, so of course the super anime fighting game (i also have a lifelong love of fighting games) having a samurai character was an instant draw for me and she became the first character in a franchise i have loved ever since that truly drew me in. the fact that she was one-armed and used unconventional hidden weapons to make up for her disability was great, too.

further deep diving into the character of the years revealed she was heavily influenced by Tange Sazen, a character from several "samurai vengeance" movies. if you've ever watched a post-modern western and have been enamoured with dark tales of revenge and tragedy, well boy is that a genre for you. and Baiken's own story is rife with material for that.

the biggest challenge with her is that DWRP is, by nature, driven by social interactions and Baiken doesn't lend herself well to those most of the time. she's often aloof and unconcerned with the lives of others (or at least pretends to be). so sometimes i need to stretch her a little bit to get her to actually "yes, and" some folks and give something to write off of besides a stoic wall. thankfully her personality actually does soften some in Guilty Gear Xrd, seen most keenly in her blossoming friendship with another character, May.

overall, i feel a character that comes from such a bloody, traumatizing background struggling to find meaning in her life and a reason to persist without falling into lethargic depression is great material to work with. her revenge focus, and treatment of herself as already "half dead" provides a contrast for a ton of characters to wedge against, too.

(splitting these into three top levels so as they don't just blend together)

so imma be real with you, like yeah cool character design was a drawing factor, but i'm not gonna lie and pretend The Gender wasn't an attractive thing about this character, either.

kipposhi is canonly trans-masc (non-binary, uses masculine self-address), and as someone who's had a lot of their own gender struggles, there's something really drawing about a character who handles it the way he does, embracing a sort of... very different masculinity that is at both times enviable and admirable. Kipposhi himself has a lot of interesting facets to him the other Fate Nobunagas lack, and it just further draws me to him.

he's hopelessly earnest despite his big chuuni energy. he is remarkably honest about how rough his life has been, but also tacitly understand and has the need for people to think of him as this great conquerer, because his entire existence formed around it, and being the "young" Nobunaga, you get to see the root of what inspired his ambitions to begin with, what the Fool of Owari really was, or at least could have been.

obviously some challenges come with this; as an irregular anomalous character, he's not going to get the screen time regular Fate Nobunaga gets in their various appearances, and i have to fill in a lot of blanks, but thankfully i'm still kind of a fiend for samurai history and i'll never complain about having to deep dive into the live of Oda Nobunaga.

i think his wild personality throws a lot of other characters off guard, and "off guard" is probably the best state to be in in order to build good CR. love that about him.

also on a more just fandom-centric note, if you can find a translated playthrough of the Yakuza Ishin game, he's in that too, and *it's great*, but it's mostly because he's represented by Nishikiyama, and the parallels of Nishi's relationship with Kiryu with Izo's and Ryouma's is just

chef's kiss.

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Page 1 of 3

What Draws You To Your Character?

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The Luminary | Dragon Quest XI

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Yuber | Suikoden

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Claude von Riegan | Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Tsuna and Din

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Kadoc Zemlupus | Fate/Grand Order | SPOILERS for the Lostbelt arc/FGO part 2

Darin Altway | Original Character

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Chara and Shadow

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Re: Yuber | Suikoden

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gareth 🐺 fate

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baiken 💀 guilty gear

oda kipposhi 🔥 fate/

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