Experiences When RPs fall off, what happens to your OC?

[TaperedNightjar]

Pretty much all of mine are from my own story. I just change them for roleplays. When I come up with a new OC for an RP I'll usually modify them to fit my story too. I buy a lot of commissions, so I always keep and re-use my characters.

 

[Nu Epiq]

Move them to other roleplays. That is, if they fit the genre. I may have to do a little bit editing. Still, no point in wasting a perfectly good character.

 

[BearSkull]

Reading all of these replies, turns out I do something very different than everyone else.

I don't really make up new ocs for different rps unless that rp is extremely specific or something I haven't worked with before. But I have like a good 10 ocs that I just circle around with! I'll add details to their stories or take away things depending on the new rp, I keep them super close to me, draw them a ton, all of that. They're like little trinkets I'll keep in my pockets and take out whenever needed.

 

[Pokeking]

I just store my OCs away to be used later on in a storyline that I can fit them into. I also have my own independent writing.

There are some of my OCs that I'll refine their canon histories that I'll use in the storyline if I'm able to mention it. Creating lores for them helps when I use the character again in order to maintain continuity as much as possible. For example, if Xen the minotaur finds himself in an inn at the start of the storyline and then in another storyline, he boards a ship, his history is exactly the same before the story beings. Same parents, same brother, same land he came from.

 

[Maverick Six]

I usually leave them in the universe now-a-days. If I bring them back, I reboot them heavily to explore another angle. But mostly don't do that.

I may sometimes make references to them with other characters I have.

 

[PrecisGirl]

I tend to keep the same character (or at least one of a small group of characters I reuse). Everything that happens to that character in previous RPs generally get added to my characters' lore.

For example, if my character (previously has no romantic experience) is used in a romance with X person in one RP, then the RP dies, the next time I write that character, she now has a previous romance with X character to draw on.

May or may not be relevant to the next RP, but it's always there, and I will almost always remember what happened in the previous RP, so it adds a bit of extra layers of character development that I need to draw on.

 

[AlexneushoornTheGreat]

It depends. A lot of times, the characters die when the RP dies, but if I like the characters enough, I reuse them for other RPs, or if I can't find a good RP to reuse them in, I tend to use them in my own solo writing projects. For example, I once made a merpeople RP, and because I was never able to keep it successfully going, I instead decided to recycle the characters and setting from that RP and turned it into a solo writing project.

 

[cor lapis]

i usually just reuse them because i only really have a couple ocs for select settings or fandoms which makes them rlly rlly old (creation date-wise lol). it takes me months, if not years to fully develop an oc that passes standards i've set for myself so i usually never have trouble reusing them. i also leave their backstories open-ended on purpose to allow for smooth transitions into other plots, but i do know some people tailor-make ocs for ONE plot and don't want to or can't reuse them, which is valid too. i think that has only happened to me one time and i was rlly sad because i loved the roleplay and the oc and to this day i haven't been able to reuse her because she was so connected to my old rp partner's oc who was her brother.

 

[GammyWamzee]

If the RP doesn't get too far I'll usually try to reuse them if I had special attachment. Otherwise they will go into storage other than the few lucky ones who consistently get reused no matter what.

 

[Hakaider]

depends on terms and conditions like I like doing multiverse with some ocs revise them but reuse them somehow but its only if Im running things cus I see lots of stuff is to uptight

 

[cuzn]

I just keep them. I'm one of the weirdos who uses the same set of OCs for almost everything, only editing aspects of their character to suit the setting. I just find it difficult to get attached to OCs that I don't love, and when I love an OC I get completely obsessed with them (like, a hyperfixation type of thing I suppose), so even when RPs never get past the first few responses, my OC is still alive and well and has probably developed a lot since then.

 

[gator]

I just cycle through the same three characters in every game, less work and it's like they're having episodic adventures

 

[AaronMk]

Any characters I write are often fitted for the particular RP. So when the RP fails they are allowed to fade away. RP is like the sand mandala of writing. It shouldn't be unexpected to just drop a character if their setting lapses like sand to the brush.

But I do recycle parts and there has been a few opportunities where I have recalled characters for the new setting and re-explore them in a new context.

 

[Jannah]

Any characters I write are often fitted for the particular RP. So when the RP fails they are allowed to fade away. RP is like the sand mandala of writing. It shouldn't be unexpected to just drop a character if their setting lapses like sand to the brush.

But I do recycle parts and there has been a few opportunities where I have recalled characters for the new setting and re-explore them in a new context.

This is basically true for me too. I rarely recycle characters.

 

[Slothgirl20]

I keep them! Due to life happening, it’s rare for me to finish a roleplay completely or even get far enough to fully explore a character. I only retire them once I’ve used them to death and see that there’s no more room for character development.

 

[VoidSpace]

They may be recycled, set aside or completely forgotten.

 

[xpstitch]

I use them again after if I'm not burned out on the setting types they were created for.

Example : I tried to use an (completely biased opinion) awesome My hero academia OC, I was ghosted and found another DekuxOC story...

Then was ghosted again so it's been a year since I got burned out. May be ready to try again some day but...

I'll not bury an OC casually. If I actually get to enjoy an RP with an OC for a significant amount of time, I'll let them rest for a long while because my soul has been sated. I'll find a new setting or whatever and try and enjoy that if I can.

 

[Natasha4E]

Either I forget they ever existed, or I search for a new rp for them. Most likely, I'll change them a little for the new rp just because I can.

 

[Naril]

I keep a large roster of 'core concepts' sitting in my head, or in a notebook, and those inform the characters I write. If the story never starts, peters out, or whatever, the characters usually get broken up for parts, you could say. There might have been a physical description I really liked, or something about their personality, or a superpower, or whatever, that might get recycled. The core concepts sometimes grow into other characters, and sometimes while reading a setting, a whole new idea will spring up. It just kind of depends.

Generally, the characters I put together tend to be very bespoke to whatever setting or story I wrote them for, and there's not a lot that's easy to 'genericize,' especially when it comes to backstories or other histories. I do, however, keep all of those histories and stories, because sometimes they're good seeds for other writing.

 

[Sagey]

I'll reuse them if it's the same/similar setting or I'll reuse the name for a new character. Depends on how the RP ended.

 

[hunnicutt]

For me it depends on how far into the roleplay we got, and how attached I was to the outcome or pairing for that character. Usually, though, I will recycle characters in some manner eventually.

 

[natsukashii]

Unfortunately, they go into the vault until I find use for them. If I don't write my own fic or story, then I just wait for the best time to utilize them in a different setting. Sometimes I repurpose and fuse a couple into a new character. Sometimes they find better life as a new character altogether because half of my OC concepts aren't fully-fledged characters with their faults and habits that make them flawed, so fusing some parts of them with other parts of other characters make my frakenstein monster into the perfect creation

 

[RedArmyShogun]

Maybe I'll reuse them, but in general that RP and its world just no longer exists. Shame the story won't progress, but eh.

 

[SasquatchCat]

I tend to take the ones who I use the most, have the best understanding of, and who are most versatile as far as the setting they can be found in, and plunk them down in new RPs.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of characters who just don’t translate to other continuities very well. If I want to see them again, I have to go back and read the old transcripts.

 

[glowfrog]

My OCs usually start out as amorphous blobs of characteristics, archetypes and personality first before I stuff them into a body, so I can easily shift them around between different settings. I do have one character that I haven't been able to do this with, and that's because she had such monumental character growth IRP that I genuinely struggle with identifying her original characteristics that haven't been shaped by the narrative. IDK, each character is its own beast, and they're all parts of me that I put into stories.