What's your preferred age range for OCs?

Posted 5 years, 7 months ago (Edited 2 years, 10 months ago) by fuelli

Pretty much what it says on the tin, as always! I was wondering about this since I see that many users seem to have a preferred age range, or sometimes an exclusive age range for their characters! What's yours? (I'm of course talking about physical/mental age here; keep that in mind if you mostly have immortal OCs)

Also, please stay nice in your replies! Having preferences is 100% okay, but don't insult people of a given age range (ie. "elderly people are ugly", "minors are boring"), whether you're referring to real life people or just characters. I want this thread to stay enjoyable to read for everyone, no matter their age or the type of characters they write.

AlleycatIrony

my age range for my characters atm is like... 8 years old to ... i think my oldest is over 160? but technically speaking my oldest would be in the 70s range

my preferred range however is 18-28 :0 idk it's probably super obvious but i pay WAY more attention to my characters in that age range compared to the others 😅 my characters tend to age as i do so that's probably subject to change as the years go by (like back in early highschool all my characters were mostly 14-16 but they're all a lot older now)

copiedcity

well if we're talking my actual age range (ignoring immortal and dead characters //sideeyes lochan, luciel and calloway) that would be... i think 7-205? which is pretty big. yknow. but my actual preferred age range is like,,
idk 30-50? idk i just like old guys. Old Dads are fun characters to mess around with and its just kinda hard to get attached to younger characters for me? despite being a Youth myself. teens and w/e are just way harder to write for me so i just roll with my sad old guys
most of my newer characters are around late 20s-early 30s though so take that as you will

circlejourney

Oh, interesting, I did some calculations and it seems like their ages average out to 24. Not because I have a lot of 20+ characters, but because I have a lot on either side of that line: younger teens and 30+ year olds. Many of the ones I haven't posted are even older, too, but I'd say I really like writing tweens/teens (12-18) and mature adults (30-50).

I went and made a chart lol

WsvL4ru.png

solarsnapp

most of my OCs are canonically thousands of years old but they would look around 20-30? I tdid try making some younger characters to sort of get out of my comfort zone

Caine

I feel like a large majority of my OCs falls somewhere between 13-23, and funnily I think I really seem to avoid characters who are 16 or 17; they're usually always either 15 or 18 instead. I don't think I really have a big preference in a way I'm comfortable writing just about any age (even older characters, despite what my TH galley might suggest), but I have the most fun writing tweens and young adults. I guess I enjoy the age range where you're sort of in the middle; between a child and a teen, or a transition to a "proper" adulthood, because a lot happens in the minds of people who're living that kind of stage in their lives.

fuelli

Thanks everyone for answering so far, it's very interesting c:


circlejourney Ooh the chart is a cool idea! So I tried to make one even tho it's preeetty loose haha (like I ignored super underdeveloped characters, and gave approximations for non-human characters)

AOP6ABk.png

(Thanks to the Le Club des Treize cast for messing with my stats with all these 6th graders lmao)

ClyncyeRudje

For me, I guess late 20s-early 30s? I have a few characters who fall outside that range, but that's where most of them live.

Pepperly

My oldest (in terms of creation) OCs tend to be mid-late teens because anime school tropes, but most of my currently active ones seem to be in their 20's-30's (I only have set ages for an incredibly small collection of OCs) because adulthood has a broader spectrum of life conflicts than childhood or teenage-hood. Even though most of my characters are in a "magical" world, most are mundane people who use"'magic" for everyday things and live lives on their own, away from parents (mostly because it's difficult to have family with CS), and are dealing with love, money, work, and whatever else I can drop on them. Including wild monsters. I have some that are outside of that trend in both directions (and some deity characters with 3-4 digits in their ages), but I prefer to stick into old-enough-to-be-on-their-own and young-enough-I-can-draw-action-and-don't-have-to-draw-wrinkles...