OCs you don't use in forum games even though you-

Posted 5 years, 3 months ago (Edited 5 years, 3 months ago) by circlejourney

—like them and they're fully-developed?

This has come up in a couple of my conversations with friends. Some of us, myself included, have faves that we don't ever use in forum games.

There seem to be various reasons for this. In some cases, we're not confident about writing from their POV—maybe because of an aspect of them that we don't want to get wrong, and don't want others to get wrong, either. Sometimes it's that their profiles seem easy to misinterpret. There's probably other reasons, of course.

I'm wondering if anyone else has OCs like that, whom they love but whom they just don't find themselves ever sharing/posting as in forum games?

Caine

With me it's usually one of the three reasons:

  • I haven't drawn them a proper (or satisfying) reference/icon image yet, thus I feel kind of embarrassed showing it to people when I feel like it's not "up to my standards" 
  • A profile I don't consider totally unfinished, but something I'm not proud of just yet. It often has to do with their main story progression ie. I'm stuck or haven't started it yet
  • The character is an adopted one and I feel terrible getting compliments on designs when I haven't designed them. My ego is fragile 
As for special reasons, here are some:

Aabel's character deals with topics so sensitive I don't feel comfortable "forcing" people to interact with something like that, so I usually use him in games where people don't need to read his bio or they can choose somone else if they're not okay with this one 

Bambi is a very adult oriented character who deals with themes etc I don't want to force minors to interact with, even if he isn't mature locked or even explicit. I just think it's more of a common courtesy than anything 

Chris' profile is here more as a showcase than anything, since he's missing in his main canon work and I don't want to spoil!

Pierre is also more on the adult theme side, like nothing is explicit or anything but I sort of prefer to keep lower profile about the characters who have sexual kind of NSFW themes on their profile since I'm largely known as a SFW artist through and through + most of my OCs are minors so people sometimes forget I am an adult with adult characters too who deal with more adult themes 

circlejourney

Hehe hedgemaze you're one of the people referenced indeed. It's funny that it's specifically their importance that makes them hard to write about/as in games sometimes.

I have a couple of my own:

  • Hong Yi. Ironic, but it's because he's so much like me, that I'm even less confident about writing the aspects of him that aren't like me: I want his writing to be consistently well-fleshed-out across the board and I worry the parts I don't have much firsthand experience with, e.g. living out of the closet in America, will stick out. I'm especially uncertain about his dialogue, he sounds so much like me when I'm trying to make a good impression that, ironically, I worry that it all sounds fake. Same reasons writing his chapters is so difficult, really
  • Fen is my big one. He is absolutely one of my favourite OCs, full stop, but his profile is a permanent WIP, and I'm not ready to put him where people need to read it. He's one character who has life experiences I have no parallel for in my mind (physical disability+mental illness), so I'm twice as nervous about striking the balance between not glossing over it and not making it the defining trait of his entire character—and to this point, I don't think I've quite managed it. Even more so, I worry about how others will read him, he's not...soft and weak but he's got an understated personality that people might take in combination with illness to mean he's a pushover or what-stereotypes-have-you.
  • Peyton......I don't know why? I guess it's partly that I haven't put all the work I wanted to into them: their art is not as detailed as I want, their profile doesn't do a great job of capturing their bumbling, accidentally-hilarious demeanour and...I guess I just plain don't feel that TH would like them very much because they're a huge bore on the surface.
  • Adamanta: Way too much spoilery lore concerns her that even her very long profile doesn't begin to capture. You couldn't get her right just from reading her profile so that's how it'll be until I get this story written, even though I really like her as a character and abhor her as a person.
circlejourney

Caine I absolutely feel you about characters not being up to standards, both in terms of art profile. Like if you've got to show a character to the world, it's gotta be their best face.

"The character is an adopted one and I feel terrible getting compliments on designs when I haven't designed them." I am...a little relieved that I'm not the only one who feels this way; I've tried subtle ways of avoiding this lmao, but people still end up finding them.

celestiials

I have some haha

  • Currently he's not uploaded but Hades; his bio is going to deal with some of the problematic content in Greek mythology?? Of course I'll try my best to try to keep it at a very low level but depending on how bad his bio turns out, I may never use him or forum games or even upload him publicly jshgajshdga-
  • Generally I sometimes don't use characters if I don't really feel that much of a connection between them (sorry everyone aaaa)
  • I'm honestly not sure why, but I don't use Baldr that much in forum games... I really don't know why, his bio doesn't deal with a lot of problematic content (well, asides from death but that's already labelled). I really need to use my Gary Stu Baldr more ahaha...
  • Same issue with Hel, I'm not sure why I stopped using her. Maybe it's because I kind of got tired of all the comments of her design being too plain?? Not sure ahaha-
  • Not sure if he's applicable since I do use him at times but Resuir; I try to refrain from using him a lot because his bio does deal with some sensitive topics and I don't want to make people uncomfy by accident
  • I don't use  Elijah or  Kyo that much either; in Kyo's case it's due to his bio having sensitive content but for Elijah it's simply because I don't like how his ref came out and I'm planning to redesign him soo...
  • Ever since I updated Raphael's bio he seriously became a thread killer so I don't use him that much too-
RadiantRaindragon

Here's just a few:

Pazzia - He's a character I've had since early 2015 and I consider him to be one of my most developed characters... but I hardly ever use him here, the main reason being that he's canonically human, but I can't draw him human form well enough. So his main profile showcases his AU dragon form, which doesn't have exactly the same history and everything his normal form has. It's kinda hard to do anything with his AU form, so he's stuck being left out.

Ivy - Main reason I don't use her in games is because she doesn't have any art I'm satisfied with. But it's also because Ivy flirts with almost everyone and that makes it awkward to write her interacting with other peoples' characters. She's also just a terrible person in general.

Sheldon - I don't like his current icon so I don't like posting him in the forums, and for some reason he's difficult to write correctly even though he's a developed character who I've had for a long time.

Raven VincentVanGoat

Isra was originally rather not safe for work, but that's pretty much changed but I still am weary to do so, even if her one NSFW image is properly tagged and hidden to those not wanting to see and all the info on her profile of that nature was axed since there was no way to really age lock that, and at the time I did it I was waiting for the recent tab changes, but figured it wasn't even worth putting it back in a tab, wanting to focus on the later ideas I had for her in the end.

So yeah I gotta post her some more, cause she's good to go now. Then again a lot of the time, I just post characters I've recently being working away on, and right now that's Anima and Apres, and I'll post them if I could in a thread!