Other Random question of the day

Don't write how the characters wake up, look in the mirror and compliments themselves, how beautiful they are. It immediately sets the mood for a mary sue type of character. Unless that's the point, ofc. Or a specific character trait when they're a narcissist.
 
Both:
  • Show, don't tell (as a general rule)

Do:
  • Introduce us to what the character is all about and why we should care - The most important thing an introduction has to do is create a scenario that puts on full display the core aspects of the character, as well as those who are meant to be hook the audience to them. If to understand a character you need to know X, then X should be shown in the introduction. You don't need to make a huge deal and flash it with neon lights, but it probably should be done via something more than just a line thrown in passing. The real extent depends on how big the introduction can be and how many such traits there are. But while core aspects need to be present and identifiable, the hook aspects need are the ones needing the most highlight.

    One particularly important aspect to highlight here on this point is what they are struggling with. This will help set up what the character might need to overcome, as well as serve as a further reason to root for them, grounding them with certain troubles or limitations.
  • Show the character enjoying and/or dedicated to something (they enjoy) - Showing something the character is invested in is simultaneously one of the simplest and a very effective method of getting people to like them. Enthusiasm can be contagious, and the simple idea of being really into something is generally relatable, plus it humanizes the character letting us see them more as their own person with goals and interests. Other benefits include possibly setting up skills or motivations, or a point for conflict.
  • Combine your narrative objectives - I'm lacking the words to name this tip, so I'll just use that. What I mean by "narrative objectives" is stuff like "establishing the character likes X" or "getting the character to go to place B" or "giving a physical description of the character", etc... If you're doing an introduction, you likely have a lot of information to convey and things to do in a relatively compact time / space. While this is a good rule for writing in general, I think in introductions its particularly good to be able to meet several objectives with the same sentences and sequences. That vampire that loves repairing cars might get a physical description as they get up from under one with some oil on their pale skin, using their fangs because they forgot one of their tools, and having their long hair tied. Maybe the sequence where the character walks on their way to the place they've been summoned lets you give some worldbuilding as you bring up several people who talk to the character in a way that shows how they are regarded in town and how they generally behave in public, maybe in contrast to how they were previously shown to behave in private.
  • Create plot hooks and places for interaction - More important if you're writing an RP post than a book story, though even in stories you might want a little bit of this, that is leaving avenues through which the plot or other characters can organically come into contact with the character. There's always exceptions, but in general everything will flow much better if other characters or the plot don't have to put effort to look for your character specifically. It's easier to make sense of "he was a soldier with great skills frequented a bar where job offerings where posted" than "he was a soldier with great skills and the army specifically came to recruit them". The reason why this is important in RPs specifically is that that it makes the work of not only yourself but particularly the other players and the GM easier too, easing interactions, letting the RP work better, and possibly even overcoming some hurdles from lack of skill or experience in the area of creating character interaction some players may have.
  • Give the intro some personality - Your intro shouldn't be a shopping list of all the character traits. Your intro also introduces how a character should be approached and viewed within the narrative, so its tone and the way it describes things can create that framing. If you write an introduction where the character keeps doing things and failing, this will create an expectation as to the adversity they must overcome. Depending on why they fail they might even signal if this should be taken more as a comedic thing or a tragic thing. It may sound obvious described like this, but the way things are described can have an impact much the way that the simple content of the description can.

Don't:
  • Lie about the character (unless its a dedicated twist character) - Trust is a precious resource that's hard to build up and very easy to shatter. Like Machieveli's use of cruelty, you get one shot and you better make it count, cause any further reduces your credibility. So don't frivolously throw around information about a character just to take it back, as it can quickly become confusing and annoying, and possibly create a Peter and the Wolf effect when you actually do want to make something interesting out of them. If you do want to make a big twist though, make it something where the character is actively trying to hide it, not just by dismissing others but by acting in potentially detrimental ways to themselves in order to keep up their disguise, give little hints and ambiguities from time to time, and in short make it both appear that the character is invested in keeping the secret (when thinking of it retroactively) and make good use of set up/foreshadowing. Starting on, but not limited to, the character introduction.
  • Just make it up as you go along - Building up on the point above, if you don't go in with at least a semidecent idea of who your character is, it's going to be considerably harder to follow any of these dos and don't, or indeed any kind of good character introduction. Specifically, you might well end up tripping over yourself in stuff you need to retcon just to make the character's role in the plot or premise make any sense or the character itself to be at least somewhat consistent and functional. Yes, there is such a thing as discovery writing, but discovery writing usually involves going back to previous scenes and discard them, re-arranging them or rewriting them so make the overall thing make sense. Depending on the format of story you're writing, this may not be possible (like RPs, or stories published chapter by chapter). Even for styles which are more by the seat of your pants, I think it's important to have a more thought-out start just to have solid ground from which to grow the rest.
  • Make the character apathetic or dismissive of the plot/premise - If you make a character that doesn't care about the plot/premise then not only will be harder to make sense of them becoming involved in it, and to progress the plot in a narratively satisfying way, it'll also quite possibly make readers not care about it either, or make the whole thing seem less important. Few characters will make this work, and those that do are usually the ones in an arc around growing to care about the issue. If a main character or your RP character starts out like this, most of the time they should turn their perspective around very quickly (probably during the first post).
  • Rely on competence for likeability - Competence is one aspect of characters that can make us like them, and indeed I think many of us could think of a few characters that they enjoy for these really cool/awesome things they can do, whether it's grandiose magic, impressive cunning or deduction skills, or simple martial badassery and jaw-dropping stunts, heck even just being good at talking to people and making friends could count among these. The problem with competence though, is that it can be a particularly hard sell when you're relying on it. It's thin ice where too little makes the character not seem all that great, and too much can lead to a host of problems such as invalidating the plot, encroaching on the role of other characters or otherwise making them seem lesser than, or tipping the hand of the author and thus breaking immersion. On top of this, people will be less inclined to take their competence in a good light if the character is otherwise unlikeable or in the case of RPs if the character's competence gets in the way of that other person's own character getting their time to shine. There are also many times when competence can be exceptionally hard to show in an introduction without making a scenario far too contrived, especially seeing as the method by which they are competent can also be something that is harder to demonstrate (a character with great social or intellectual skills will often need the author to actually come up with clever solutions or ways of making the character more charismatic, which can be a hard sell). Long story short: Likeability through competence is best for long-term writing, try to use something else in the introduction. It's of course possible to do it, but it's considerably harder.
 
that time on the office when kevin was able to do math in relation to getting pies, but not in relation to other, nondesert, things- honestly, as a person who really strugles with doing math as part of a learning disability, it just rubbed me the wrong way. it was fatphobic, and it was just... hmm, what do i need to put in as the obgect of my word problem in order to properly do math?
 
It's a difficult question on such a broad category of what's often a background character, and with such a wide range of circumstances, but if I were to throw my hat in the ring I'd say Maquia from the movie Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (throughout that movie she goes through the whole experience of learning to be a mother, while having to travel in exile and getting whatever resources she can for her family. Without spoiling too much there's some big emotional moments about both being a mother and letting go, and especially witht he added interesting angle of an adoptive mother from a long-lived race raising a human child)
 
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Random question of the day:

Do you create original characters for any fandom you're part of? If so, who's your tallest OC you've ever created and who's your shortest OC you've ever created?
 
Well, yes. Whenever I roleplay fandoms it's an OC based roleplay and I avoid bringing in cannon characters to any capacity to which it is avoidable, and even then only as NPCs.

I have no idea which ones would be the shortest or tallest.
 
it means the right to freely express one's opinion, but also the right to disagree, both respectfully, and not-so-respectfully, because nazis. do they have the right to spew their hate? technically, yeah. but I can also heckle them.
 
Freedom of Speech is the right not to be impeded from communicating (nor forced to communicate), through means which do not in themselves imply extensive harm, one's thoughts, opinions, emotions, ideas and so on to any wanting or at least willing to listen and capable of standard comprehension.


-"Impeded from communicating" - Forbidding / preventing communication in any place considered the standard for communicating/discussing; altering or removing it such as to prevent the meaning of the message or more salient aspects of its form from being properly conveyed to preventing it from reaching more people; or individuals or collectives making a substantial threat/tangible harm as an explicit response to what was communicated.
-"Any place considered standard for communicating/discussing" - There might be a better way to define this, but there are times and occasions that are generally agreed upon as appropriate to speak and discuss things. Pretty much anywhere outside, in place designated for discussion etc... But there are also times and places when it is not appropriate for you or anyone else to speak. If you're at a theater (actual theater, not the movies) I don't think it's a violation of your rights if security kicks you out for chatting too much or too loudly.
-"substantial threat / tangible harm" / "extensive harm" - It's hard to give a real definition here. I'm thinking of things like physical injury, substantive damage to property, financial loss... It's hard to pinpoint the exact line in which this goes from "trivial" to "substantive" though.
-"communicating" - voicing (not in the literal sense, it could be writing etc....) what one intends to say, being that those they intend to communicate it to have the capacity to listen (again, not literally listen. Also note that capacity doesn't mean the will to listen)
-"wanting" vs "willing" to listen - Someone wanting to listen is someone who goes out of their way to search for what you have to say specifically. Someone willing to listen is just someone who is receptive enough to not actively avoid your speech. Willing here is then defined not as wanting but as not being unwilling. Searching for a youtube video, stopping to listen to a singer on the street are examples of wanting to listen under this notion. Not changing a video after you get to it on autoplay or not walking away from a spot where someone is rambling nearby makes you a willing listener (again, under this notion). A wanting listener is always a willing listener, but while the same can't be said the other way around, a willing listener can become a wanting listener of a certain person/topic/content/etc... For instance, if you want to communicate some news about a scammer for instance, people who aren't actively looking for such information should still be able to be communicated to about it.
-"capable of at least standard comprehension" - I think you have the right to try to reach people, but this isn't everyone. Children, people with certain mental disorders, very old people who have alzheimers or the like. There's a difference between communication, education, indoctrination, manipulation and other such terms, and when one is not in the state of mind to properly comprehend what is being communicated to them at even a basic level, one can quickly turn into the others. Naturally even adults who are sound of mind can be manipulated, but I don't think it's unreasonable to apply a higher standard on what's allowed when it comes to, say, children.


This is a very complex topic and a day isn't enough for me to organize my thoughts enough to put it into formalized words... But I tried my best, even though there's surely a few mistakes with it even just regarding my own views. Fundamentally, I think the thing to understand about free speech it's that it's important because it lets you say the things that other people don't want you to say. Free speech just to say whatever happens to be the consensus is meaningless. Free speech is there to say what you think and feel, your perspective irrespective of the others. It's there because it's important that people can speak up against those more powerful and influential, so that new ideas can breach past established consensus, to bring to light those ideas that are sensible as well as those that are utter madness, and yes even to say those things that hurt, not of course simply to hurt, because truth isn't always pleasant.
 
Random question of the day:

If a family member left a magic amulet to you that could turn you into any kind of fantasy creature, which fantasy creature would you want it to be?
 
Idea said:
So what's the criteria here for "fantasy creature" as opposed to "fantasy race"? For instance, are all humanoids excluded? If there is any such distinction in the question, I mean.
Click to expand...
Anything goes, really. Humanoids like elves, nymphs, mermaids and centaurs are allowed as answers to the question as well.
 
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