Come chat about your characters!

Ah, thanks for the name resources, you guys! That would definitely make things flow better... Like, 'Charlie' fits except that it's the only name that works for Charlie 1, but being able to sift through name dictionaries and such, I'm sure I'll see something else that suits him just as well.

@Iron_Dog I love how much culture you've got for all these things, for different groups... I just really dig that kind of worldbuilding!

 

@Anneko Thanks. I love world building. I tend to get into details a lot. To the point where I've figured out the gravity (relative to Earth), the oxygen richness, length of day/year. I even found out recently that the way I had the Awh'anise kicked up the evolutionary ladder and how that affected their further development as a species actually has real science data behind it based on selective breeding of foxes in Russia for certain characteristics. Just for funzies, I designed the house for one of my pairings and it could actually be built and is Code compliant (my day job is architecture/structural engineering).

Mind you, it can get a little complicated figuring out relative ages when I start mixing species. I had to do some calculations for interactions between the Awh'anise and Laiokians since there is a good sized contingent of Laiokians now living on Awh'an and... well, it seemed like a good idea at the time (good god, I say that a lot as defense).

The Awh'anise day is 32 hours long (it is a twin sun planet) with a year being 686 days. 1 Awh'anise year is roughly 2.51 Earth years. Their gravity is 1.5G. A Laiokian day is 28 hours long with a year being 732 days. 1 Laiokian year is roughly 2.34 Earth years. Their gravity is 1.75G. Additionally, Awh'anise oxygen content in the air is noticeably less than on Laiok.

The Teichle (the sub-group of Laiokians who live on Awh'an) have to get used to longer days, less gravity and less oxygen. That's on top of learning how to deal with a people that are pushy, aggressive, see violence as a form of play and are more than willing to have sex anywhere, with anyone, at the drop of a pair of pants. Typical Laiokians find casual touching (like hugging someone in public) rude, the idea of hitting somebody is appalling and they are very repressed sexually. The Teichle (and only the Teichle) are also sending/receiving empaths so all that violence and arousal they feel from everybody on Awh'an all the time is another hurdle. But, the Awh'anise are generally a friendly, welcoming people and the biggest draw for the Teichle is that the Awh'anise are not afraid of them because of what they can do to a person's emotions (a Teichle can twist emotions to be whatever they want/need them to be without that person knowing what's been done to them) and genuinely want them on Awh'an. Unfortunately, for many couples, cross-breeding of their species doesn't work with neither being able to impregnate the other.

 

@Iron_Dog your level of detail makes me stupidly happy, especially since now I know I'm not the only person who gets into that level of detail when worldbuilding. I also worked out stuff like that about Eris, such as what type of star it orbits (single G-type), how many moons it has (three), how many planets in its home system (twelve), its gravity (0.95 Earth normal), how much land area versus water it has (approximately 26% land, 74% water), its approximate population (1.75 billion) and a bunch of other stuff like that. The Erisan day, if measured in Earth hours, would be about 23 hours long and the year is around 351 days. The planetary climate of Eris is warmer overall than that of Earth because Eris is closer to its star, and it has an oxygen-rich atmosphere that is higher than the oxygen of Earth's atmosphere.

I did a whole info post on Eris, back when I was still using Tumblr. I still have it, and I think I posted a link to it a few pages back.

I'm loving the diversity between your worlds, too! The different views on violence, casual touching, sex, and other social interactions fascinates me. As for Erisans, they are all empaths too, and a small percentage of the population are full telepaths. Telepathy is not viewed as a favourable condition, though. Almost without exception, telepaths are exiled from the general population and sent to live in compounds. This has been going on so long that an entire subculture of telepaths exists. They're known as the Emri, and they're greatly feared, hated and misunderstood by the majority of mainstream Erisan society. I have an entire history on this, but I'm not going to get into all the details of it unless anyone's really interested.

Because of Erisan empathic abilities, the crime rate on Eris is exceptionally low. Erisans abhor violence. They are all vegetarian, as the idea of killing and eating anything that experiences emotion, however basic, is utterly horrifying to them.

In terms of social customs, Erisans don't wear clothing (except they diaper their infants and they wear protective clothing when necessary). Body art, jewelry and hair accessories are popular among both sexes, though. There is nothing in Erisan society that is viewed as "gendered" and they define themselves as male or female based only on biological sex. Family and career roles, fashion, social and cultural pastimes are not divided in terms of what's "normal for males" or "normal for females". It's equally acceptable for everyone. The only distinction between sexes is the actual limitation imposed by biology. Only females can become pregnant, give birth and produce milk, for instance, and only males can produce sperm. Males also have the added ability to control the production of sperm - a sort of "natural birth control" - which is good, considering the Erisans' views on sex. For Erisans, sex is as much a recreational activity as it is a means for procreation. It's certainly not a taboo subject and isn't seen as something that should be private, or even exclusive to partnership bonds (although many partnerships do prefer to keep their sexual encounters restricted to just the partners). Erisans aren't the least bit shy about engaging in sexual activity in public, either. Casual touching and surface contact anywhere on another person's body is acceptable, as long as that person has given his/her permission to be touched. Permission to touch is a formal social custom. One person asks for permission to touch the other. The person being asked offers their hand, palm up, and the person asking permission then strokes the other person's palm with their forefinger. Permission only needs to be given to someone once.

All Erisans are bisexual, although some have a stronger preference for one biological sex over the other. With Erisan partnership bonds, there are typically three partners, either two male and one female or two female and one male. Sometimes there are same-sex trios, but they're pretty rare. Two-person partnerships also exist, but they happen less often. Partnership bonds aren't necessarily for life, and can be dissolved if all the partners agree to do so. The only real exception to this is partners who are akimeru ("the other half of one's soul" or literally translated "soul completion"), who bond for life and the surviving partner(s) tend not to form new bonds if one of them dies before the other(s).

Also, I gotta say, you also made my day by mentioning that your language is polysynthetic. My undergraduate degree was in linguistics, so seeing something like that just made me go Erisani is an agglutinative language. Because of the Erisan empathic sense, Erisani also has an added layer of non-word sounds (squeaks, chirps, growls, etc.), each of which has an associated emotional interpretation. Because of that, it's almost impossible for a non-empath to become completely fluent in Erisani.

And getting back to the subject of names, nicknames and naming, I'm curious as to how your various cultures' names work. Like, are names separate words that are easily recognizable as names (such as "English" names that have meanings but aren't generally used to describe other things)? Erisan naming custom favours names that are also words to describe objects, places, or states of being.
Sini's name, for example, is made up of "si" (sky) and "ni" (little or small), so she is Little Sky or "a small piece of sky".
Kiro's name is made up of "ki" (cute or pretty) and "ro" (a type of flower similar to an Earth lily), so he is essentially "Pretty Lily".
Piri is a kind of Erisan bird that feeds on flower nectar, similar to an Earth hummingbird.
Pax is "harmony", not in the musical sense, but in the more metaphorical sense.
Jex is actually an unusual name because the word "jex" in Erisani is a word with multiple meanings, depending on context. Its most concrete meaning is the jex crystal, or heartstone, which is a red semi-precious stone that's often made into jewelry and highly favoured by bonded partners to give to each other as bonding gifts. It can also mean "treasured" or "cherished", such as in the phrase jex anoa ("my cherished love"). It can also be used as a term of endearment such as jex ani ("my little treasure").

@Anneko - glad to be able to help! I hope you find a name that you're happy with and that works for him.

 

@SapphireStargazer Dude, we soooo need to get together and talk *laughs*. I'm totally bummed you can't make it to AN this year.

Awh'anise isn't spoken much by non-Awh'anise, Teichle excepted, simply because a lot of meaning gets conveyed by tail posture/positioning, general body language and how much/little fang/claw gets exposed in certain situations. The Teichle can sort of "make do" by using their hair (which is semi-sentient and typically ankle-length) to mimic positions of an Awh'anise tail. Although, it's sort of like somebody speaking with a lisp when they do that since it's not quite right.

The Awh'anise are generally bi-sexual as a species although there are some who only prefer their own/opposite sex. They are the minority though. It's also very common for siblings to have sex and usually the first sexual encounter is with a sibling. A genetic quirk prevents breeding of individuals that closely related so pregnancy is not an issue. They are also generally only fertile 4 times a year for roughly a week or so (males and females). Because they are so free with the loving, when a female gets pregnant and has had multiple partners during a breeding cycle, males are able to tell by scent if the brood is theirs or not before the kits are born. Once a male confirms that a brood is his, his breeding cycle is automatically suspended for the next 6 years. The female, because of the pregnancy, has her cycle suspended for the same time as well. Sub-tropical and Mountain Awh'anise typically have only one father per brood (although multi-father broods sometimes happen) while Equatorial Awh'anise can have multiple father broods.

Now, the Vylfians are a triple-sexed species; male, female and dual. Duals can be further broken down to male or female dominant dual and neutral dual. All males are capable of carrying a baby via a pouch (like the male seahorse) as well as breastfeeding. Vyfians have low birth rates due to irregular fertility periods (males even more irregular than females) and having more than one baby at a time is highly unusual. Families also tend to be rather small with more than 3 kids seen as a large family.

Moswen (of course it was Moswen *snorts*) had NO idea he could get Kijika pregnant (different species aside). Jaiseki (their son) was an "accident" of the highest order. A male needs to consciously relax the muscles controlling the opening of the pouch in order to become pregnant. Kijika knew he'd recently entered a fertile period and never intended to open the pouch, but him and Moswen ended up very drunk at a celebration in Moswen's honour and pouch play is very erotic among his people and Moswen allowed the pearls to appear, which produce a substance that increases desire and the chance of conception and... Yeah. Karma bites Moswen once again.

 

@Iron_Dog we DO!! It would be totally fun to get together and talk about worldbuilding and writing and dolls and...life, the universe and everything. I'm kind of bummed that I can't get to AN as well, but my bummed-out-ness is tempered by the fact that I got a new job and was finally able to get back to my home province after about 14 years of wandering the country. Moving an entire house full of stuff to another province is expensive, let me tell you, so unfortunately travelling wasn't in the cards this year. We'll see what next year brings.

hahaha I couldn't help laughing a bit to see that Moswen didn't know he could get Kijika pregnant I can just imagine the, "Uh...how did that happen?" moment. It's funny for me too, because I think maybe this is common in fiction where there's inter-species mating. Tyler and Sini's older daughter Skyla was an accident too. They were both under the mistaken assumption that they'd be genetically incompatible. Neither of them are scientists, so they really had no basis for believing that, and were going on pure assumption based on the fact that they're from two different worlds. On top of that, Sini wasn't even worried about getting pregnant, despite the fact that Erisan females are pretty much fertile any time, because males of her species are able to control their own reproductive secretions and would never try to impregnate a female without her prior consent. Sini didn't know that Earth males can't do that, and it never occurred to her to ask. It was not a good day for anyone - but most especially not for Tyler - when Sini realized she was, in fact, pregnant. Skyla and Kiva are scientific curiosities, as they are the only two Terran-Erisan hybrids known to exist.

Erisans have an extremely low rate of multiple births. Twins are rare but not unheard of, and triplets occur about once in every 1 million pregnancies. There aren't any recorded higher-order multiple births among Erisans. The relatively common incidence of twins among Earth people was actually a huge concern for Sini and Tyler, especially considering Tyler is half of a set of twins. For Erisans, a twin or triplet pregnancy is considered extremely high-risk.

Erisan siblings sometimes do experiment together sexually, particularly when they first start to become sexually mature. Sex between siblings isn't encouraged, but it's also not seen as shameful or deviant. An Erisan's first sexual encounter is usually with a peer, though, as opposed to a sibling or a cousin, and a young Erisan's first time is typically viewed as a rite of passage, alongside such other coming-of-age adventures as their first time camping in the forest without family supervision or their first time getting high on hazha. Hazha is a root vegetable and has highly intoxicating properties. Usually it's chewed and the juices are swallowed and the pulp spat out, but some people like to get creative with it and bake it into cakes or make a kind of soup with it. It's used by most adult Erisans as a recreational drug. (hahaha.... Now I feel like I'm making Eris sound like it's kind of a 'sex, drugs and rock & roll' culture...).

 

Grats on the move. I can imagine moving all your worldly possessions across provinces would be wince-worthy.

The finding out of the pregnancy was... Moswen was thrilled once he knew the baby was his but things that had gone before meant that he at first thought Kijika had gotten preggers by a native of his world because Kijika is a prince (although he's not eligible for the throne as he himself is a crossbreed of 2 of the species that share the planet) and was doing his royal duty.

They have a daughter, Xinda, as well and like her grandmother, Olanthe, Xinda is a female dominant dual. Further proving Moswen's karma is deranged, they have Xinda when Jaiseki is 4 when it shouldn't have been possible for Moswen to father a child for another 2 years. Xinda is a Shal-hazal, the first non-100% Awh'anise. She's a Litch and she has a Teichle of her own, Chayne, to keep her sane (relatively). It's unknown whether her and Chayne are able to conceive.

Jaiseki is not a Shal-hazal. He's a Bearer of Shadows in the Naemo army. His husband is Sarojin, the... king of the Kith for lack of a better term. The Kith are a magically created species that were used thousands of years ago by the Naemo against the Vylfians in a huge war. Over time, they achieved sentience and are their own people now although not all Naemo are aware of that. The Kith are basically shadows. Jaiseki and Sarojin have twin boys, Vuchel and Vashin. One can disappear into shadows (and can take his brother with him) while the other can vanish into light (and take his brother with him).

 

Love these stories! I just came up with my new story and am busy looking for shells. The story is set in a dystopian future, where everything is automated and technical, and the arts are banned for being "unproductive", (like extreme Footloose). My story centers around a girl named Clara (the only doll I've shelled, a Doll Family A Shana), whose sister Josephine was taken by the government for writing stories against them. She is told that if she ever wants to find her sister, she needs to go an underground cabaret called the Pen Knife. The Pen Knife is one of the last ways you can find any art and they've got it all- dancers, singers, circus acts, art on the walls, and books for sale. Clara asks the MC and The Pen Knife (Hugo), if they've seen her sister. Hugo says yes, but not in a few months. He explains The Pen Knife is really a front for The Sawdust Collective, a resistance group that Josephine was part of. Clara wants to join to see if they can help find her sister so Hugo introduces Clara to his girlfriend, Cosette (He likes to call her "Cozy") to see what she thinks. Although Cosette is initially against letting this outsider in, Clara eventually persuades her and becomes part of The Sawdust Collective and starts working at The Pen Knife. Then I've got ideas for a whole cast of characters in the collective/cabaret that I need to shell. I'm so excited for this new story!!

 

Reading all of this makes me sad for my pitiful attempts at story writing. :P Most of my characters sort of change to fit the current setting since the majority of them came from RPs either pen and paper or forum based, so their basic appearances and personalities stay with them but the world around them changes constantly. I used to be better at writing years stgo when I was Dungeon Master for a campaign (very) loosely based on the world from the Cheysuli novels by Jennifer Roberson, and I think it helped to have a setting already and various background characters that could be pulled in on an as needed basis. But I haven't done much with any of that in years and years and I think I've lost a bit of my writing skill as now I have difficulty even keeping a journal when then I had stacks of binders and notebooks full of different stuff I'd written.

 

Writing is a skill like anything else. The more you do, the more you hone your craft. Sometimes its tough to get back into the groove when you've taken a break (willing or not) but quite often you'll find it'll come back and the words will flow easier the more you do. Try writing something small to get your groove back on. Say... 250 words about your character(s) treating themselves to their favourite food that they really shouldn't eat or finding a 4-leaf clover while walking home from school/work or how that cloud looks like a dragon eating cotton candy. It doesn't have to be anything story related as long as you do it. And hey, you never know, that little bit of silliness could lead to a story. I've had that happen and gotten a full novel out of something like that.

 

@Iron_Dog yeah...moving all my worldly possessions from one province to another is definitely wince-inducing, and it doesn't get easier with practice. This isn't the first time I've done it, and not even the second. In total, I've lived and worked in 5 different provinces. This is the absolute last time I am ever going to leave Nova Scotia (other than for a trip) though. I know I should never say never, but I really mean it this time.

And yeah, 100% agree. Writing, like any art, is definitely a skill that improves the more you do it. I love the idea of the 250-word writing exercises. I do those all the time because they not only help me keep in shape as a writer but they also help me get to know my characters a lot better. I know stuff about my characters that will probably never appear in any story, but it's still worth knowing because it makes them that much more real and credible. And I also tend to find inspiration from the writing exercises, but then again I can pretty much find inspiration for a story anywhere in everyday life, particularly for Two Worlds and Still Bravely Singing. haha now I want to do a short about Tyler indulging in a food he's not supposed to have There are a lot of them, since he's on a medically-prescribed diet.

My current project is to write some Two Worlds stories from the point of view of different characters. Tyler, Jex and Piri are usually the point of view characters for those stories, and I was thinking that there'd be further opportunity for storytelling if I tried something from somebody else's perspective for a change. I actually decided to start with Michael, who has spent his entire life basically in Tyler's shadow, in one way or another. It's hard to be the younger twin, the less outgoing twin, and the non-disabled twin who gets less attention by default. I thought it'd be interesting to let him tell a story for a change. All I need to do now is figure out what Michael's story will be about.

@TwistedRiver roleplay is actually really great as a character development exercise, especially if you're changing settings/environments but trying to keep the characters essentially the same. I find it's really helpful to put characters in situations that they might not otherwise find themselves in, just to see how they'd react. Also definitely going to second @Iron_Dog's advice about the short writing exercises to get yourself back into it. It really can be hard if you've been away from it for whatever reason, but it's not impossible to come back.

@dollydisaster - I love it. I'm getting a real George Orwell's 1984 meets Les Miserables vibe from the plot you described, and I would totally read something like that.

 

Thanks for the advice @Iron_Dog and @SapphireStargazer I know its something I just need to sit down and do, but lately it's hard to find the time and when I do I find myself just sitting and staring at a blank page till life calls me away. :P I actually shelled one of my long standing characters Vish in hopes that it would help me to get the writing bug again, and having him around in physical form has been helpful for my mood, but I still haven't gotten much written yet. I will keep trying though.

 

It is hard to do when there are so many things tempting you away. And sometimes, the words just refuse to come out and play. I don't know if it would help you, but sometimes I find reading somebody else's work will give me a nudge to do some of my own stuff. I'm not sure why my brain does that *shrugs*.

 

@TwistedRiver - I'd also definitely recommend reading other people's work as a way to help your creativity resurface. As for fighting the blank page monster, somtimes the best cure for it is the simplest one: write something. It doesn't have to be a story or even a scene or a sentence. One writing exercise that often helps me fight the blank screen is to do a 20-word list. I write the character's name at the top of the page and then, as fast as I can, I write down the first 20 words that spring to mind when I think of that character. I don't stop to think it over; I just write. Sometimes, the words aren't apparently connected to the character at all but, surprisingly, I often do find inspiration in them. A friend and I devised a challenge based on the list which is to take five words from your list of 20 and write a scene or a story containing those five words. But, just making the list itself takes literally two minutes. You can even do it on the notes app on your phone and save it for later.

For me, I find a lot of inspiration in everyday life. A story doesn't always have to be a huge, sweeping epic tale or something that's unusual or extraordinary. I've written stories where the main event is feeding a baby, making a cake, buying lingerie or going to the grocery store. Sometimes, I'll find myself doing something like riding the bus, cutting the grass, walking through the mall, cleaning the bathroom, walking the dog or something equally mundane and I'll think "How would 'Character X' do this?" or "What would 'Character X' think and feel while doing this?" That often leads to thoughts about how other characters might respond to another character in that situation.

For instance, Aubrey Davenport (Descent) would hate riding the bus, and he'd be absolutely horrified at the idea of cutting his own grass or cleaning his own bathroom. It would be either highly entertaining or highly annoying for the people around him if he somehow found himself having to ride the bus or do his own chores. This, of course, inevitably led me to wonder what sort of situation would arise in which Aubrey would be forced to do his own laundry, let's say. Incidentally, this is the reason Aubrey had to do his own laundry for a while. That story was actually the response to a writing challenge, but the follow-up story, about Aubrey going to the laundromat (which is a WIP at the moment), came from me thinking "What would happen if Aubrey had to do his own laundry?"

This story, Love and Monsters, was a story that came out of a five-word challenge.

I really love writing challenges and prompts. Those are also another good source of inspiration when you're faced with a blank page. The internet is full of writing prompts of all sorts, and sometimes all it takes to spark your creativity is to hear or read an idea that you might not have thought of yourself, and then put your own unique spin on it.

 

Definitely go with the what would character X do if faced with Y situation. You can get some funny, silly stuff out of that but sometimes, a whole story will develop from it. I've had that happen more times than I want to count. Prompts are good, too, and sometimes even off-hand conversations will get you going in a direction you might not have thought of before.

I was talking with another author about how characters are frequently this handsome perfection or gorgeous starlet beauty. I decided to write 2 somebodies who aren't any of that (except to each other). One is a geeky, socially awkward scientist (who might be considered passable in the looks department on a good day) really only feels comfortable around his bugs. The other is a Gen-Mod and he is a mix of scorpion/fire ant/human DNA so he's got 4 arms and a scorpions' tail. The doc finds him highly attractive where other humans wouldn't dream of anything intimate with him.

Mind you, the story wasn't a rousing success with readers because most were put off by the idea of a "bug guy" but they really were sweet on each other and found each other attractive. The people who did read the short really enjoyed it and I have been asked if I'll write anything more with them.

 

TY for all the advice guys, if life outside of hobbies stops kicking my but I'm definitely gonna try some of these ideas, even if I just get bits and pieces written down, it would at least be a step in the right direction,

 

I don't have a too many character problem, actually, though I'd prefer it to the problem I do have. I have way too many story ideas in my head. Characters are hard for me, and I usually have to work with them for quite a bit before they get names. I have written some of my stories with characters just listed as MC1, SC1, and so on until the end. I can keep most of my stories to novellas or short stories, since they're set on modern day Earth with fantasy or sic fi elements. When I actually create a new world though, I just want to keep writing and writing about it. Therefore, the characters I end up wanting to shell... would be way to difficult and expensive to put together the way I want them (even if I totally have sculpts picked out for every character in my vampire story and really want to shell them).

There are two stories that I have that I'd like to get dolls for, mostly because I found certain companies worked with the feel of the story (I hope that makes some sense), and I have one mini story I created for my current doll.

The first is set in a dystopian world, eight years after a world-wide nuclear war left Earth ruined. My main character (Priscilla) is a young girl, around 10-12. She is nomadic and spends most of her time catching rats and finding remnants of the past to trade at the markets. Her hair and skin are nearly white and she wears layered black clothes to help her blend in at night, when she does her traveling since it's too hot in the day. She has no shoes, so her feet are always dirty and bruised. She is skilled with a dagger, which is important when almost every person you meet would gladly kill you if they thought they could get away with it. Priscilla survived only because a woman found her right after the accident, and treated Priscilla as a replacement for her dead daughter. She was forced to pretend to be someone else, until she witnessed the woman's murder and ran away at age seven. She does her best to be emotionless and not want anything, since she's never really known what it's like to be comfortable and loved. Eventually, she is found by a pair of children she does not recognize, who claim she is their missing sister.

Sibling 1 (who I'm hoping to shell as a DC Elizabeth on the k-body-11) cannot see much more than shadows, but has gained the ability to see glimpses of something, though she doesn't know if she's seeing the past or the future (they are actually visions of another part of her current world, inside a "utopian" society for the "chosen ones"). The visions always upset her, for they are either horrible and give her nightmares (though she doesn't know if her nightmares are her own, or more visions), or full of beauty. She dislikes the happy visions more, because they remind her of what the world has lost. Sibling 1 rarely speaks, because she spent years living by herself and has mostly forgotten how. At night, however, when (she thinks) everyone is asleep, she likes to dance, and wears a pair of old tattered ballet shoes. Sibling 2 usually tries to stay up and watch her, and on the first night that he and Priscilla watch her, they both start crying. It's the first time in years that Priscilla has cried.

Sibling 2 (DC Mathew on the k-body-12) takes care of sibling 1, and later Priscilla 2. He's the oldest, at 16, and feels responsible for both of them. He often feels obligated to keep his feelings to himself, so as not to upset his sisters. As he spends time trying to get Priscilla to come out of her shell, however, he learns to be more open about his feelings of loss and helplessness and rely on others. He spent most of the time after the accident searching for his siblings, and only recognizes Priscilla because she was still using the old bag that his mother made, and colorful cloth is unusual by then.

The siblings eventually meet another pair of siblings, one who works as a mechanic to keep the run down shack they live in mostly functioning (DIM Larina head on the DZ B45-16) and the other who works as kind of a scientist/surgeon (DZ Ivan or Leon on the DZ B-45-15), who is trying to recover a patch of Earth to grow plants on and raises the mutant rats for food. His fingers ended up melded to some thread after the accident, so his hands can only spread about a foot apart before the thread stops them. He thought about cutting the threads, but they felt like a part of him by the time he had the chance, so now he just works around them.

I think my space in this thread is up though, so I'll just give tiny summaries of my other stories. One is about a group of late teens (17-18) who are part of a book club, and are also retired magical girls. They are working on training the next magical girl group, since they found themselves unable to transform after turning 17. I'm hoping to shell them as minifees. The other story is about a college boy who is taking care of his young cousin after her mother kicked her out. His best friend (who is also in charge of the childcare center at the college, and his girlfriend are also featured.

 

I have several characters.

Niccolo is a mob boss's son going to college and doing... not college... Primarily blackmailing his classmates, smuggling alcohol, and generally being a pain in the butt to everyone he doesn't like. I've been working on this novel Completely Legitimate Rowing Team for over 5 years... It's like a fantasy faux-1920s setting peppered with how much I hate higher education as far as finances and bureaucracy goes.... Like I love learning, but I hate school...

The problem with working on something for so long is that my tastes change and getting older I'm growing mentally and it's like oh god I handled this sensitive topic really callously in an earlier draft...

I am fussy because since he's a villainous protagonist, he's not at all sympathetic, so all he has going for him is being evil in an interesting way but then it's like OH GOD IS HE EVEN INTERESTING?!

Also I have no idea how to narrate a rowing regatta in an interesting way...

Az is the other character in Niccolo's story that I like enough to shell as a doll. He's a deeply insecure guy whom Niccolo often talks into terrible ideas and they love each other in their own messed up kind of way. Which is to say Niccolo loves someone he can dominate without much effort and Az is amazed anyone likes him.

They also have a friend named Zanobi who is basically a greedy robber baron with no concept of assisting the poor. He's slightly eviler than Niccolo. Niccolo is in a liminal situation because he is rich enough to go to the most prestigious (and therefore expensive) college but most of the old-money classmates look down on him. And Niccolo's family history is that the mob started as a way to provide order and safety during the revolution to dethrone the monarchy, but they have since somewhat abused their power, but that's the public image they insist upon. And Niccolo will at least provide lip service to the poor though he is also aware of loan sharking and other manipulations against the less fortunate. And Niccolo's father launders money with his soap business and regularly provides free soap during flu season.

Then the antagonist is Sheridan who is a holier-than-thou do-gooder type. He means well, but he usually does things in the most snobbish way possible. Kind of in that "white man's burden" "the poor are too dumb to figure things out themselves so I'm gonna tell them how to do everything from my gold mansion" way. He's not necessarily helping someone up so much as lording himself over people.

Then my other story-verse is The Ex-Con Enchanter. Nick is a character who has been around for a few years. He started out as a Downton Abbey fan character for a role-play but I liked him so much I decided to rehome him in an original story.

I feel like a lot of fantasy stories are very unforgiving like even in children's media, so often the method to get rid of the villain to kill him? (or they conveniently fall off a cliff, etc). So I think wizard parole is an interesting topic. I mean not every crime-committing wizard is the dark lord trying to destroy the world.

The setting is Magerica which is like a magical AU of the USA that is a weird retro-future setting that is modern but not exactly and some wizards crenellate.

Nick is a guy who grew up poor and he got into stealing things because he always felt a bit shafted with hand-me-downs from his brothers. Also he just generally didn't get along with his family. His mom likes him most because he is actually interested in her potion making business, but she is pretty bad at nudging him in the right direction. Nick mainly hangs out with her because she isn't especially judgmental. His father and two older brothers hate him. He's gotten out of jail but feels a little directionless and has trouble finding a job until his mother blackmails the City Planner and gets Nick a job as a secretary. Nick is a pretty grumpy and sour person and pretty paranoid about nice acts because he always had a pretty shady group of "friends" since he was often fencing stolen goods. He isn't really sure how much he cares to integrate into society when he doesn't actually like society that much. He was mostly only behaved in prison to avoid getting murdered.

Peter is Nick's parole officer. He's optimistic to the point his coworkers are 75% sure he will burn out in a few years. He carries and absurd case load. Is probably time traveling to fit everything in. He thinks everyone is redeemable, though some of his parolees confuse his optimism for being an idiot but he's not any worse at noticing something fishy is going on when his parolees turn back to their old ways. He is also typically really weak for sob stories and fighting for the proverbial little guy and would probably clear out the animal shelter every week if he was a billionaire. He owns a hellhound-mutt that he insists is a Normal Dog despite the fact she makes everything stink of brimstone. He's basically a pure cinnamon roll. He is kind of an exercise in writing someone optimistic positively. I feel like sometimes I get a little too "being cynical is smarter" when it's not necessarily true and shooting low to avoid disappointment can be maladaptive or at least overly complacent.

Completely Legitimate Rowing Team is the "everything is going wrong" story and The Ex-Con Enchanter is more optimistic, albeit with some light jabbing about stupid things that happen in the USA.

My dolls Savio and Cecil and Saif are "homeless" characters. Savio doesn't have much of a personality yet since he was an unplanned doll that I won. Cecil is just a cute genderqueer boy. Saif... I have no idea what I am doing with Saif. I keep trying to give him a fantasy face-up but it doesn't seem to stick.

And my Dollits Oscar is Elder Price/Nic Rouleau, but I never call him that? Sometimes I worry about fanart dolls because I don't want to be too stuck on making him a certain person. It feels more difficult when it's not my own character. My other fandoll is my Thomas who is based on Thomas Barrow played by Rob James Collier from Downton Abbey but I haven't felt like dressing him up as a butler lately (I'm somewhat salty about the end of Downton Abbey...) and gave him a scruffier face-up after a friend suggested painting him up like other characters Rob has played and got a sudden hankering to make him a pirate.

.....this post got very long.... and I didn't even come close to covering everyone...

 

I've been having a character looming in the back of my mind since last year after I saw a digital drawing by a popular artist! Now I'm hoping to shell her into a doll (her head is already purchased, wig is being made, eyes ordered)! She has developed into quite an OC and I can't wait to have her all finished up! I will eventually purchase her body and get her tattoos done as well!

Her name is Alyssa, she's going to get quite tangled up in the character web that already exists for my other dolls/OCs! I think it will be quite fun to see her enter the scene. She's a little rebel sorceress who was a rival to my warlock boy, Riyan, who has been turned into a vampire since they left their schooling days. She finds herself quite attracted to Riyan now, even though he is pretty much into solely into Katarina (he is still obsessed with Zephii, but that's another part of the story).

 

Sometimes the more interesting characters are the ones who aren't so nice and sweet and are in fact deeply flawed. I recently finished a series of books called Dave vs The Monsters. The title character, Dave, is just a regular guy thrown into an unbelievable situation of turning into a Champion that kills demons and their ilk. Dave is an asshole. he even says that of himself. His actions and thoughts further that, too. He does redeem himself through the course of the story but he is still, at his core, an asshole. Despite that, you actually end up liking the guy although its iffy that you'd invite him over for a bar-b-que (because... asshole).

Quin is my challenging character. He's the pissy bitch of the universe, generally being snarky, rude and abrupt with almost everybody. He does care deeply about his friends, lover and family but that doesn't mean he won't treat them the same way if he feels it's warranted. Despite his attitude, many readers have told me how much they enjoyed him as a character.

 

@zekarmisama I think you're right about a lot of fantasy settings being unforgiving when it comes to antagonists and villains. I absolutely love the idea of wizard parole, too. I work in the legal system and I see all sorts of emerging concepts of rehabilitation, restitution and restorative justice. I like the idea of those things being transferred into the realm of fantasy because I feel like it gives "bad guys" a chance at redemption or at least the possibility for redemption to exist. Sometimes i feel like fantasy as a genre isn't nearly as flexible with the concepts of "good" and "evil" as some other genres, and I think it's great that there are people who can see other possibilities for the genre.
Also, I may be a little smitten with your Peter, as I know social workers and parole officers like him in real life. They're the ones that are truly good at their jobs because they really care about their clients. Sometimes people do mistake kindness and optimism for naiveté and stupidity, but the person's true character and intelligence usually make themselves known in the end. Those workers are the ones people really remember, both in fiction and in real life.

@Iron_Dog - I'd tend to agree with that, although I'd lean more towards "deeply flawed" as being the main point rather than a character's lack of niceness. Sometimes a character's deep flaw is their unshakeable optimism or guilelessness. I find characters who exhibit extremes of positivity are characters I often love to hate, but who are also memorable (like Dory in Finding Dory; I actually find her annoying as hell, but she also makes an impact because a lot of people know a "Dory" in real life). But yeah...the ones with less desirable characteristics and personalities are also interesting and likeable in their own way.

I'm obviously not a published author, so I have nothing much to go on, but after a career made from working with people and learning how to read real people's personalities I feel like I know a thing or two about what makes people attracted to other people anyway. Michael Brightman (Two Worlds) and Noé Perreault (Descent) are my difficult characters.

Michael has spent his entire life living in the shadow of his twin brother and, although he'd most likely not come right out and say it, he's grown to resent how much attention Tyler gets. People are attracted to Tyler because he's friendly and charismatic and a genuine people-person, whereas Michael tends to appear unapproachable even though ne doesn't necessarily mean to. Michael is sarcastic and generally impatient, and he's like this with everyone, even the people he loves.

Noé, like Michael, is the younger half of a set of fraternal twins, although he hasn't spent his existence living in his older sister's shadow. Noé is also a master of sarcasm, but he uses it more as a shield than anything else. Unlike Michael, Noé isn't genuinely snarky; he has true empathy for people in need and loves to help people and to feel needed (which is why he chose a career in paramedicine). His problem is that he finds it exceptionally difficult to trust people, which really hinders his ability to make friends and have healthy relationships. He was the victim of bullying violence as a child and teen, which included both physical and psychological abuse from his school peers, and this has left him with a lot of psychological baggage that he continues to work through as an adult. He tends to be rude and abrupt with people who annoy or upset him, and he tends to push people away when he feels they're getting too close, although he's not always fully aware of this behaviour. There are very few people he trusts. His "inner circle" is limited to his sister Elise, his best friend Scarlett and his work partner Sunny. Yet, despite his own personal issues, he's excellent with his patients and can quickly build a rapport with even the most frightened or distressed injured or ill person. It's much easier for him to connect with his patients because he doesn't have to continue a relationship with them afterwards and there is no pressure on him to sustain any sort of committment in which he himself risks getting hurt.

 

@SapphireStargazer *nods* deeply flawed. Who among us doesn't have flaws? And they really do make the character more interesting.

Sleet is deeply flawed and he could easily be one that readers would hate. He is a sociopath, knows he is a sociopath and doesn't give a damn because he likes the person he is. He's also a serial killer (reformed somewhat because Fei-Lau doesn't allow him to kill people whenever he feels like it) that enjoys causing pain (and receiving it). His favourite way to kill was during sex (usually with his "toy" subject to various torture before/during the act). He's also engaged in necrophilia not because he likes the dead in that way, but because his toy died before he got off and he saw no reason to stop his pleasure just because the one he was screwing was now dead.

However, he's also scarily obsessed/in love with Fei-Lau and Khale and won't even need to think twice about hurting somebody for slights (real or imagined) to either of his lovers. With them, he's attentive, considerate and freakishly insightful (mostly because he's utterly obsessed with them both). He will die for either of them and if Fei-Lau told him that he needed Sleet to kill himself, Sleet would do it because his faith and love is so absolute. Most of Sleet's desire for pain (giving and receiving) is played out with his lovers as they're in a BDSM relationship. Fei-Lau dishes out the pain (which both Sleet and Khale adore) with Sleet also being allowed to deal pain and some more extreme levels of play with Khale that Fei-Lau doesn't feel entirely comfortable doing. Fei-Lau is Master to both, Khale is submissive to both and Sleet is submissive to Fei-Lau but sometimes Master to Khale (when Fei-Lau allows it).

 

Maurice is probably my Difficult character... whereas Jean and Luc are young and somewhat haplessly fell into the profession, Moz has been a jaded spy from the age of sixteen, and he's well into his forties before he goes for any form of redemption. The three of them were kind of created on the same template of this dashing, handsome gentleman spy, and each evolved in his own way from that starting point. Jean and Luc went straight into 'what did I get myself into, and can you help me get out of it?' territory, both deciding they didn't have it in them to be this cold-blooded, Maurice took off in the opposite direction.


He goes from being young and principled and working for a cause to losing his faith in humanity and everything else, to stealing information for the highest bidder, to killer-for-hire, and he spends that entire ethical downward slide being very... charming on the surface and empty inside. So he gets to a place where he really doesn't blink at the most gruesome of murders, he has very little empathy for any adult human-- and while he won't kill kids, he's absolutely not someone you would want around them, because he was fourteen or fifteen the first time he had to kill a man in self-defense and just does not understand that maybe children shouldn't think of that stuff as normal.

He's broken in ways that would absolutely engender sympathy if he wasn't also such a gleeful asshole about it. From taunting enemies who may have been hired to take him out, toying with targets he's been hired to take out, and just outright mockery for anyone or anything that falls short of his exacting standards. Necessity might have made him a spy and a killer, but nature made him a real jerk.

 

@Anneko It's probably bad of me to say but I think Maurice sounds really interesting and I'd certainly read a story featuring him. But I also seem to go for the darker characters or ones with really messed up backgrounds so....

I like to torture my boys. Physically, emotionally, mentally... *shrugs*. I do give them their HEA or HFN, but I'm often a cruel writer. Khale was seduced by his father (whom he didn't know as he was the result of his father capturing his mother and raping her repeatedly before she got away) who actually took Khale's virginity and did it as a lark and to see if Khale had inherited anything useful from his demon side (he did). He told Khale he'd teach him how to control his ice hands but the price was to allow his father to continue to screw him. Khale was appalled and sickened and said no. His father then engineered a war between Khale's people and Stone Giants and made sure that the giants would be winning. The Frost Elf king was told of Khale's hands and how that would turn the tide of the war in Frost Elf favour. The king ordered Khale to accept his father's offer and Khale pretty much had no choice but to whore himself out to his father to learn control.

His father used him in all kinds of way, coming up with every depraved thing he could think of. That went on for several weeks before Khale learned that he was supposed to demand lessons every time he visited his father otherwise, his father was simply taunting and goading Khale while enjoying himself. Khale was also instructed in military actions, something he was woefully bad at (except tactics, he was very good at that as he had been studying to be a scholar). Khale later finds out that his father wanted to get Khale's ice hands into tip-top shape so he could kill another demon for his father, take that deon's power and transfer it to his father so his father could gain a powerful demon clan. His father told him then of engineering the war in order to back Khale into a corner and said he could make it so the giants weakened and the Frost Elves would claim victory.

In order to do that, Khale needed to become a little more Ice Demon than Frost Elf and allow himself to be gifted as a bed slave to the demon he was supposed to kill. When the time was right, he was to kill the demon. And while Khale wrote a contract with his father for that service, when everything came to a head, his father used the wording of the contract against Khale and said he'd still be his father's plaything. Khale lost it and killed his father an in doing so, became the Shard of the clan his father wanted.

All that happened when Khale was 16. The good thing about it was that he made some excellent friends during his ordeal, freed his half-brothers from their father's control and learned a lot about his sexuality that makes him a happier, surprisingly well-adjusted person. he also swore that he'd be a fair ruler and protector of his clan, which he has been and has made the demon in his clan very happy and content with his rule.

 

I just found this thread today and I've enjoyed reading the stories from the first couple pages so far, so I thought that I might as well write about my crew.

My ideas for this story kept changing for the past couple of years and I think it'll always keep changing but as of now the main idea is that there's a group of people from different times and dimensions brought together to fight the main villian, Harvey, who brings unsuspecting people to his world.

The world Harvey has created is pretty much a giant city. Most of the people are seen as static silhouettes because there are two sides of that world, the people that Harvey drag into that world and those that break into there on their own.

So the main part of this story takes place in an apartment that the group of heroes call their hideout. The majority of the story is someone has a plan but one or a few of team doesn't like the idea so the plan ends up failing.

It starts out with Seth Wolfe (Soul Doll Juhl), ending up in this world while trying to find his younger half brother, Aaron (Akagi Doll Roosevelt). Along his way he meets up with Mel (Miracle Doll Vic) and Emrys Locke (Ringdoll Ran). The two of them have strange powers and seem to come from the same world but hardly like each other. Emrys has the power to control the growth of plants and use them as a weapon. Mel has many powers that he won't reveal to his teammates. He'll mainly use his powers to liquefy his body to escape enemies or put himself into a better position to shoot enemies. His powers also use up a lot of energy so he always has to eat after fighting.

Not long after the three of them establish the hideout, Mel traps an imp, Felix (Soom Cheshire jr.), that was snooping around their hideout. He's small and can get into tight spaces that they wouldn't be able to fit in. Felix also has the powers to create illusions for a short period of time but they're mainly used for pranks. It takes then a while until they finally trust him to join their group.

The latest one so far to join their team is a royal messenger elf. Seth is out alone looking for his brother but instead sees Nicholas (Peakswoods Goon) fighting a hoard of silhouettes. Seth joins the fight long enough for the both of them to escape and make it back to safety.

On Harvey's side, he continuously summons more people to his world. He manipulates them to fight for him, some easier than others. He usually keeps himself sealed off from everyone for his own safety since he enjoys watching the chaos he's causing. He thinks he can see everything.

Important people on his side would be Aaron Wolfe, Piers, William, Fortissimo Wolfe, and Latif Winters.

Well, I feel like I've written a lot here. Hopefully not too much. I just wanted to note that all of these characters are from different stories I've written for myself. I'm usually too shy to share most of them but this new story is mainly a what would happen if a bunch of my favorite characters were forced together. It also gives me an opportunity to go more in depth with some characters that didn't get as much development in previous stories and create new characters too.

 

My dolls are all based on the protagonists of my speculative film scripts. Having an accurate, tangible representation of them is incredibly cohesive to the writing process, more so than just photos of potential cast picks (though those help, too).

I deal heavily with character-driven arthouse takes on genre films; strong subversion, substance through style, etc. Currently I have...

Sage (Limhwa 57cm Half Elf) -- hard-boiled detective in an original cyberpunk universe set in Osaka, 2043. A very femme take on a John Woo-esque antihero; rash with guns blazing, but soft and sympathetic, if not downright shy. She's kind of a sweetheart when not fighting violence with violence.

Paprika (Fairlyand Feeple65 Chloe) -- high class transgender escort; also Sage's romantic interest. Takes the 'sex worker with a heart of gold' trope and twists it to the point that she's arguably the strongest, most relevant character in the entire story. Coy, clingy, affectionate and dominative -- a good counter to Sage's unhealthy level of independence and work ethos. Even she can't say no to Rika.

Scarlet (Iplehouse SID Stella) -- Terribly personal concept. An American sweetheart pop vocalist drove straight into the ground, burnt out and preyed upon. Total wreck hidden behind a pretty face and picture perfect public image. Frighteningly topical given her real-world counterpart. My investment in this one is high, and I plan to push it for my debut while the time is right.

Foxglove (Soom MD Amber) -- morose forest witch living in agonizing solitude. She never really recovered from the suicide of her sexually assaulted lover some years back, left bitter and heart-broken. Seemingly dead inside if it weren't for a little flicker of distant hope in her eyes. Inspired by the drama/horror hybrids of Mizoguchi, Shindo, and Rollin.

 

@Iron_Dog, not gonna lie, your characters sound awesome. Like, that's the kind of stuff I'm super into. Pretty boys in complicated BDSM relationships with each other, and dark pasts, and fantasy worldbuilding. I'm already enchanted, and I would love to hear more!

I thought I was the sort who needed a character first before I got a doll, but I've fallen hard for Doll Family-H Anye and before I knew it I was constructing a character for him, which ballooned into a world and story. I don't even have the doll yet, but I hope to get him soon. The character he's become is a vampire assassin called Thorn, who was found as a baby by an infamous order of assassins. The order took him in and raised him, and now Thorn owes them his undying loyalty. He's especially close to his direct superior (who doesn't have a name yet), who he believes he's in love with. Really it's an abusive relationship because the superior gaslights and emotionally manipulates him and physically abuses him and has been sleeping with him since he was 15. All while the superior acts like he's such a great person for saving the life of a vampire in the first place. Thorn has grown up unquestioning his upbringing, convinced that he's just a weapon who exists to emotionlessly execute his order's missions.

One day he's given a mission to assassinate some minor wizard. The wizard manages to turn the tables and accidentally ends up binding Thorn to him as his familiar. Yeah. Then fun and adventures ensue and Thorn becomes closer to the wizard and they start to fall for each other and Thorn starts to think for himself for the first time in his life and mushy stuff like that. I haven't yet decided on what doll the wizard (whose name is Elroy) will be, but I eventually want to have him too.

 

@bickazer : Thank you. Please feel free to PM me if you'd like to read my stories. I can certainly provide you with links to the various free reads I have posted on my author journal. I have others that were with a publisher, but they are orphaned now after my publisher folded in December of last year and I haven't decided what to do with all of those yet. What you described of Thorn sounds quite interesting and I'd read something like that for sure.

Quite a few of my couples enjoy BDSM but Fei-Lau, Sleet and Khale are the heaviest players of the bunch (at least that I have as dolls). Rhas-Khan (Soom ID Gluino), Fei-Lau's brother, and God of the Abyss, also enjoys higher levels of BDSM with his husband, Eilam (SD Vito Rail). Whips are a favourite of theirs. I do have Rhas-Khan right now and am saving to buy Eilam. I may also be purchasing Ra-Sui's body (also an SD Vito, his head is the Azreal skull head, which I already have) at the same time (b'day gift to me?) and perhaps if the dolly gods smile upon me, I can order Wisp, Ra-Sui's partner for my Xmas gift *fingers crossed*.

While I don't have them as dolls and have no intention of getting them as dolls, Etireh and Wynn are very much into BDSM. Etireh is a half dryad of a bougainvillea and Wynn is an ermine shifter. Etireh and Wynn are very fond of Etireh using his vines for bondage and impact play.

 

Agatha is gonna be my girst doll when she gets here. A living doll girl that wants to be real. She wears long clothes to cover her strange joints and does her best to protect herself from getting cracked She is very graceful and quiet. There isn't a lot of story too her yet.
My other character is named Luna Grimm and she is a roller derby girl and the bassist in an all girl punk band. She is loud and opinionated and hates being told what to do to the point of bullheadedess. She is very short at 5'2" but makes up for it with attitude. She grew up as a latchkey kid and was out of the house and sneaking into venues at 13 and even got to see 5 minutes of a Bikini Kill set before the got caught and had the cops called to drag her back to her parents, A true wild child that most people are surprised to find is straight edge. She can be abrasive but when you're her friend she won't let anyone mess with you.

 

@LunarLady I love living doll characters-- I look forward to seeing her when she arrives, and seeing how her character/story develops!

 

Thank you! I was worried it might be kinda cliche. The doll has a very porcelain doll-esque face so she's the first character I've come up with *after* seeing the doll.

 

This thread is awesome. I'm swooning over all these amazing characters~ And now to summon the courage to share mine which is weird since I yammer on about them through youtube often enough...

story: 'Serenade' (SD/70cm size range)
Seren Sol, Dollits Oscar - I wanted the main character to be simple--extremely talented but simple in personality, opinions, perception and then he sort of became simple-minded. But that doesn't mean he hasn't his deeper complexities. His choices to make everything simple is an attempt to hide a lot of his insecurities and to protect himself...if that makes any sense. He's a rising pop idol that admires his city's most famous folk singer (and arguably the city's most famous music artist to date). But a moment of hasty decisions leads him to Stella, the pianist who argues his simple ways will never allow him to fully understand those around him.

Cain Lore, Ringdoll Menghe - Cain is the opposite of Seren in almost every aspect. Where Seren thinks simplistically, Cain will work over every detail to exhaustion. Where Seren is open and overly trusting, Cain is guarded and calling him unfriendly would be putting it nicely. Which is why Seren doesn't understand why Cain doesn't want to be his friend. The frontman has dreams of taking his band to the top but his own unbridled temper and disregard for his actions affecting others is working against that. For reasons Cain will not disclose to anyone, the pianist Stella Everis became an immediate sore subject for him at first sight.

Stella is not shelled and my plans to finally order her keeps getting pushed farther and farther away.

Lance Ridan, Aprilstory Adrian - Lance is Seren's self-proclaimed rival. He's making his way up the charts and is bad-mouthing Seren at every opportunity, even while Seren continues to praise his work and promote the artist that is threatening to take away his spot at the top. But they do have history together. They both got their pop careers started as young teens in the failed boy band called CYGNAL. While Seren is ecstatic to see one of his former bandmates becoming succesful, Lance is bitter over Seren's instant rise to fame from the ashes when the rest of the members had found themselves abandoned.

Sarge Helmut, Ringdoll K - the overworked manager that tries to keep everything together amidst the idol rivalry, Cain's emotional tantrums and making sure everyone is making it on time to their promotional events.


My spoiled ones belong to 'Smile Villain Smile' (MSD/50cm size range)
Adeline "Adley" Soslan, Withdoll Cathy on Loongsoul body - Adley spawned from what I had initially thought was a straight forward character concept. I wanted to create an anti-Nancy Drew. From personality to physical traits. There is a dichotomy between the life she leads while she is away at boarding school and the summers where she resides in her home city of Ardordam. She is very unhappy to return to Ardordam during those periods because of a tense relationship with her mother and the feeling of being imprisoned in her own home. The only saving grace is when she is foisted onto her babysitter, a peculiar man who her mother implicitly trusts. That alone should warn Adley not to trust this child minder but when he allows her to accompany him on his moonlighting gigs, she learns to understand why he was hand picked to suit her. So after years of successful cases together everything is turned on its head when all evidence points to Milton for murdering her mother one fateful summer.

"Milton", Souldoll Azrael on Unoa Elder body - Milton is not like your usual Ardordam citizen for he is recognizably not. Charming, self-assured and constantly broke, he makes more bad first impressions than he does good. As a private investigator, he is bound to put people on edge despite his smiles and courteous demeanor. Adley tags along on his cases during the summers as she wishes to become a P.I. like him one day. But there are few and far between that know anything of Milton's past before his arrival in Ardordam. But that causes little problems until the murder of Adley's mother. Multiple signs mark Milton as the murderer which Adley is quick to deny. But Milton is not defending himself with the usual clever and wit he has employed in the past. Adley must prove that Milton is not the murderer before it is too late. But what if she's wrong?

"Cranksy", homemade gas mask head on Souldoll Vito body - Cranksy is my source of voicing some of the omnipotent knowledge that my two main characters above are not always privy to. As the infamous masked graffiti artist, he is the fount of knowledge for revealing the history, political atmosphere and geographical anatomy of my fictional city, Ardordam. He wears a gas mask and is very protective of his anonymity, though there are countless rumors as to who he used to be before hiding his face. He is one of the blatant remnants of a war that has only just passed. Indeed, his goal is to remain the in-your-face evidence of the war everyone hopes to forget. He has been a recurring 'specialist' for Milton's previous cases. Milton might be clever but as a stranger to much of Ardordam he does not know everything. But now Adley is unsure if he can be trusted for it seems Cranksy knows something about Milton's past and Milton knows the artist's true identity.

"Agent Ghost", Ringdoll K (this guy plays multiple characters. As my most expensive doll he has to earn his keep!) - I love the story within a story trope. Here is Agent Ghost, hero of the eponymous book series that has captivated everyone's imagination after the war. He is everyone's escape into the thrilling missions of espionage, going behind enemy lines without leaving your chair, but he is also a little too close to the truth for certain people to ignore.

Adley, for her part, is a great fan of fantasy and sci-fi novels. While Milton is in the book club dedicated to these spy novels, Adley day dreams of dragons, cursed princesses and kingdoms far, far away. She is quite unsure of her summer reading: The Tragedy of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark. Hence the title of this story.

...I was hoping my response was not going to be this long.

 

I just got my boy on Friday. He isn't a character that I shelled. Rather, he's a sculpt I fell in love with. I don't have his full story yet. I feel like the doll needs to "tell me his story", as it were. I'm slowly getting there.

William Drake, son of the Earl of Corshire, went to a school for the nobility when he was young. While there, he met a princess, first in line for his country's throne. Will was 2 years older than the princess. They became best friends as children and then when they hit their teenage years, they fell in love. On the princess' 16th birthday, her father the king passed away after suffering from a long illness. After a month of mourning the king, as was protocol, the princess was crowned queen.

The problem with this was the queen was underage. She was given an advisor, her uncle. Her uncle never liked that the now-queen was in love with the son of an Earl. She should be aiming higher, looking to marry a prince of another kingdom! The queen's advisor-uncle decided to get rid of Will. He blackmailed the Earl of Corshire to force Will to join the Royal Navy. As fitting a noble, Will was given command of a ship despite no prior military service. But Will's superiors (at the advisor-uncle's urging, of course) ordered Will and his ship to explore dangerous, uncharted, pirate-ridden territory, to claim it in the name of Her Majesty the Queen.

Will did extraordinarily well as captain of his ship. He turned out to be a born leader and a military genius. He not only claimed the new land for the queen, but he also won every battle he fought against pirates and the navies of rival countries. When he returned back home after 2 years, he returned as a hero. Despite her advisor-uncle's protests, the queen invited Will to the palace to award him a medal for his achievements. During the ceremony, right after the queen slid the medal around Will's neck, Will boldly took the queen's hand in both of his and asked her to marry him right then and there. He never forgot her. And she never forgot him. She smiled and said yes.

All of the nobles present at the palace seemed pleased. All except the queen's advisor-uncle and his allies. During the next few weeks, while plans for a wedding started, the advisor-uncle and his allies planned and planned.

On the wedding day of the queen and Will, the advisor-uncle's plans went into action. As the couple said their vows at the alter, a mage hired by the queen's advisor-uncle cast a spell. As soon as the queen said "I do", a blue light filled the room, blinding everyone. When the light faded away, Will was gone...
--
This is all William has "told me" so far. He's in his late 20's now and disappeared from his own wedding at the age of 20. I don't know what has happened since, except somehow he has become a pirate and a playboy (he was always dedicated to his princess/queen before). I hope he "tells me" more soon.

 

this is the best thread! I love reading all about your characters everyone! Thanks for posting! And keep it up lol

 

I've got quite a few loonnnnng backstories for my characters. It's hard to decide which ones to talk about.
Well, Lir's in my Avatar so, about him:
His whole story is set in a Low-Fantasy world that is based somewhat on European and UK histories from around 600-1000 AD or so- Dark Ages to early Medieval. There is magic, but it's very subtle, though it's a big undercurrent in the land.
Lir's family rules Arden from the castle fortress of Dun Elisedd. Lir's ancestor King Elisedd built the place on a hill above the riverplain. Lir went traveling,since as the second son he could move about a lot. He was always the more bookish and restless one of three children. His mother had died years before, and the Lady of the house was Lir's younger sister Elinore, now that she'd come of age at twenty years. His brother Cai was going to inherit, and his father Gaheris was a well liked King. Mostly.
While Lir was away there was an uprising by traitor Chieftains that turned into a civil war, and his brother and father were both killed, along with many of their loyal guard. Lir heard about this by rumor, away far in the south, and made every effort to try to get home. It was a dangerous journey but he picked up some help along the way- a ferocious bodyguard in the form of an escaped slave named Kevya. Kevya sort of attaches himself to Lir, and they form an unbreakable bond of loyal friendship as they head north through disasters and attacks by bandits. They have to try to get to Arden so Lir can see if rumors are true and he's now got to save his family's home... and become a King.

 

hello everyone

Just was wondering what everyone's doll stories are, I would love to know more about your characters.

 

I started off with just normal people characters (a college student and his friends), but recently I've been developing a world that includes magic for some of my new dolls to inhabit. My current favorite boy can travel between this world and that one, but he kind of fades here as a result, so he's hard to notice and remember here if he spends too much time over there. (He had a kind of ghosty look, so that's what developed.)

 

oh I like the sound of that , I'm also somebody who has more modern day normal stories but I really want to find a way of making some fantasy elements

 

Wow, it's so great to stumble upon this thread! It makes me less guilty of having to text-spam about my characters. XD I only have two dolls (a girl and a boy) and I guess that's my limit, but their stories are still in progress. What has been established though, is a blend of historical and fantastical elements. Historical, meaning the early days of Edo Japan, when the Tokugawa shogunate enforced a policy of isolation.

ADHARA (IMPLdoll Azalea)
Her story was a darker retelling of the Japanese story Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Decades prior to the rise of the Tokugawa, she was found (and adopted) as an infant by a man who was a cunning little peddler with a penchant for mischief. His wife insisted on naming her Kaguya, after the legendary figure, but she ended up identifying more with a name the peddler obtained from Arabic sailors on the port. Nonetheless, she still used the name Ozaki Kaguya legally.

Her apparent resistance to aging, coupled with the shrewdness instilled in her by the peddler, enabled her to expand his operations over the years. By the time she met Guórén, her underground operations had lawmakers and lowlifes alike wrapped around her finger. But the fact that she was not human, and that she had no idea of why she was seemingly abandoned by her own kind, was always at the back of her mind.

When she first encountered Guórén, he was a scrawny street urchin and she had the appearance of a teenage girl (despite being far older). Despite the age and social gap, they took a liking to each other. The young boy eventually trusted her enough to share his wish to be the best of the group of men he both feared and idolized -- the police force who had once or twice beaten him on the street. Their meetings didn't last long, but it won't be the last time they saw each other.

GUÓRÉN (Granado Michael on IMPL Idol Male FGB)
A person of dubious ancestry, he was the illegitimate son of a Han Chinese woman whose family used to do extensive trading with Japan prior to the shogun's isolationist policies. Her family left her in Japan to fend for herself upon finding out that she had relations with what was most likely a Portuguese merchant (who also was forced to leave the country as per the new laws). Although Guórén spent the first few years of his life destitute and discriminated upon by his "barbaric" appearance, he was suddenly taken on by a childless and eccentric samurai who held the rank of police lieutenant.

Always desiring to prove himself as "Japanese" enough, he was in ways more inflexible than his mentor and more ruthless in dealing with what he viewed as threats to the status quo. Even though he would eventually be adopted by his mentor and given the name Takashima Jinsuke with the full rights of his adoptive father's rank, he still retained a lot of self-doubt as to his identity. It didn't really help that Adhara, whose operations he was determined to end, turned out to be more intertwined with his childhood than he would have liked -- and that she had a hand in setting him down his current path.

-----

Jeezus, that was long, wasn't it? I really hope I'd get to at least pen it down formally and not keep them into an incoherent jumble in my mind. XD

 

Ah, it's so neat to read about everyone's characters! ^3^

While Audrey and Zoe are two of my oldest characters, they aren't the main characters in the story. They just helped everyone else get to where they are at. This is the lynch-pin of my story.

Christian: A clever enough sort of fellow, Christian decided the best way to get out from his rather didactic father's thumb was to get as far away as reasonably possible for college. His first two and a half years at school were nothing really exceptional--making friends, coming to a place of comfort with himself as a person, going to class, dating, growing up, those sorts of things. Events took a very sharp turn after the winter holidays during Christian's third year of school. Struggling with the continuing disintegration of his relationship with his father, the increasing stress of academic expectations, and the unexpected intensity of his romance with Sebastian, Christian suffered from what appeared to be a breakdown that very nearly cost him his life. What he didn't realize initially was that what he thought were nightmares and hallucinations were actually in fact his journey through a parallel dimension, a journey that unlocked not only his own untapped magical abilities but the curse of immortality. He soon discovered that his quiet college town was a focal point for magical energies, and some of his classmates were magic-users and non-human beings tasked with protecting Earth from the less benevolent forces that exist both in their own dimension and outside of it. Furthermore, Christian discovered that his own spiritual essence had been split into two during his ordeal, and that half of it was being kept in the parallel world. With the help of his new-found friends and own magical ability, Christian was eventually able to reunite the split parts of his spirit, though it caused a rift in his relationship with Sebastian. Now Christian is trying to learn to better control his magical abilities, get through his final year of college with decent grades, and protect his younger brother Oliver from the Faerie Realm.

Christian's best friend and roommate is Rei, with whom he has a rock band. Christian loves singing and playing the guitar, is a fanatic for history, and has a taste for tattoos. He has two younger siblings, June and Oliver, who have also developed magical abilities. He has a tangled friendship with his classmate Valletta. On the whole Christian tends to be reserved and stand-offish, but it's more as a form of self-defense than any actual ill feeling toward others.

 

@Osaka - That sounds like an awesome story! I would definitely read something like that. I really like the contrast between the more typical young adult concerns of college, relationships with parents, making new friends, etc., and the whole magical focus point and parallel universe. Balancing "real" events with fantasy ones helps anchor a character and make them far more believable, in my opinion. I've read some fantasy where almost nothing is familiar, where you rarely see characters doing even the most basic things like eating or resting. Obviously, it'd be boring and annoying to see characters constantly eating, sleeping or doing such other mundane stuff to interrupt the main action, but it's good to have them doing ordinary activities like that once in a while in a story to make it more credible. I think. I mean, as a reader, I feel that I can only suspend my belief so far before I hit a wall of "nope" and stop reading.

A character of mine that I don't talk about all that much is Lord Akiyama Renji. I think this is mostly because his story feels like a huge anime-style cliché, but still...he's my character too, so...

Renji was the firstborn child and only son of Lord Akiyama Toshiro and his wife Akane. Unfortunately, Renji was always a very ill child and everyone including his parents feared that he wouldn't live to become an adult. Toshiro and Akane made a journey to a shrine with their then seven-year-old son, where they begged the gods to allow him to live. Renji's father promised that he would take his son's weakness into his own body. The gods agreed toToshiro's bargain. A few weeks later, Akane began to notice her son getting stronger even as her husband started to show signs of poor health. For seven more years, Toshiro continued to rule his lands despite his weakness and many bouts of illness. Meanwhile, Renji was learning from his father how to manage the affairs of their lands, and he was also learning swordsmanship and fighting skills from his tutor. Then, when Renji was fourteen, Toshiro succumbed to a particularly bad fever and died.

Renji felt he was too young to become the lord, but he couldn't confide this to anyone except his mother. Both Akane and Renji realized that Renji's uncle and cousins would try to take over the position for themselves, and so Renji felt he needed to be prepared. Renji decided he would make a trip back to the shrine where his father had begged the gods to spare his life, and seek guidance. While he was preparing for the trip, he started to feel unwell, but he tried to keep it a secret from everyone because he was afraid to show any sign of weakness. He took only his father's most loyal servant, Nobuyuki, with him and started out on his journey. Before they reached the shrine, however, Renji had become so sick that they were forced to stop travelling. For several days, Nobuyuki took care of Renji in a cave they found, because they didn't want word to spread that the new lord, in addition to being a fourteen year old boy, also seemed to have gotten ill again after his father's death. After several days, Renji decided they had better finish their journey even though he wasn't completely well. Noboyuki didn't like the idea, but agreed with the young lord anyway.

At the shrine, Renji asked for help from the gods. He said that he knew his weakness had come back to him now that his father was dead, and he accepted that. He wasn't asking the gods to heal him. He thanked them for giving him seven years of good health in which to learn and train his body and mind. He told the gods that the only thing he wanted was to rule as wisely and kindly as his father had done. "All I ask is for strength when I need it most," he said. He said he had nothing to give the gods in exchange for his request, but he would do his best to give anything that was asked of him.

Exhausted and still weak from his illness, Renji fell asleep near the shrine. At some point in the night, he woke to discover a large man he'd never seen before kneeling over him. He was terrified because he didn't know what the man's intentions were and because he realized he had no idea where Nobuyuki was, but the man told him not to be afraid. The man had a deep voice. He introduced himself as Narukami and he told Renji that he'd been sent by the gods to serve and protect him. Narukami gave Renji a katana with a dark blue hilt accented with a brassy gold, and told him to keep it with him at all times. Then, he touched Renji's forehead and Renji drifted back to sleep.

When he woke up, he thought at first that the strange man called Narukami had been only some feverish dream, but then he rolled over and saw the sword lying next to him. When he closed his hand around the hilt, it was as if he could hear Narukami's deep voice, rumbling like distant thunder, in his mind. "Who are you?" he whispered, and the voice in his mind replied, "I am your sword. I am Narukami. We shall rule together with wisdom and justice."

A short time later, Noboyuki appeared and told Renji that the gods had made him wander around the forest in the night so that he and Renji would be separated. He told Renji he'd been angry and frightened at first, as he didn't want to be separated from his young master, but then he heard a voice like distant thunder that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The voice had assured him no harm would come to the young lord. Then, Renji told Noboyuki about Narukami and showed him the sword. Both agreed that it was the gods' doing.

Renji was never restored to the health he enjoyed for the last seven years of his father's life, but despite his frequent illness and his frail appearance, he was always able to train with Narukami and somehow always had strength and stamina whenever he was required to fight. He quickly learned to communicate with Narukami without speaking aloud, and would often sit in the garden with the sword across his knees and have long conversations with the sword-spirit. If Narukami was certain they wouldn't be disturbed, he would sometimes appear in his man form and sit beside Renji and speak aloud with him. Once, Renji asked the sword-spirit why the gods had brought them together, and Narukami explained that the gods had been pleased by Renji's selflessness, that he hadn't asked for healing bur for strength only when it was required. That showed true wisdom and discernment, Narukami told him, and so they knew Renji would rule well.

Renji is the only person who has ever seen Narukami in his man form, and the only other person who knows Renji can communicate with the sword-spirit is Nobuyuki.


urghhh...yeah.... Okay, now that I've written all that out, it really does sound like a ridiculous anime cliché, but ehh...

 

@SapphireStargazer --Thank you for your very kind words! ^///^

I very much like Renji's story. I could gorge myself on samurai stories all day long. (And are we going to be getting a doll of Narukami's human aspect at some point?)

 

@Osaka - thanks! I'm pleased you like it. I could gorge myself on Samurai stories all day too, to be honest. I also love stuff with supernatural aspects (such as sword-spirits lol). Renji and Narukami usually have to defend themselves or their lands from humans, but they do find themselves fighting off demons or monsters as well from time to time. I'm not sure if Narukami will get a resin avatar for his human form at some point. I'd have to find a sculpt that suits him, and he's also quite large, so there's that to consider as well.

 

I had a sudden inspiration to write about how my two main doll characters Edward and Mio meet and was wondering if your dolls are in the same story, if so how do they meet? also feel free to review this little extract I always welcome constructive criticism.

have a great day , Immy


"Out for a walk will be back later - Mio"

( Mio runs a bookstore that has the closed sign up when Edward comes to check it out)

Walking away disgruntled the young man pulled up his hood despite the scorching heat.It was the type of summers day where there was a pleasant breeze bringing all the children out to play in the streets, the type of summers day where the elderly and young set aside their political differences to share a bench and watch the ducks, it was the type of summers day Edward hated.

Amongst the crowd of children paddling in the river was someone slightly taller, with long blonde hair, chucking a stick back and forth for a fluffy white west highland Terrier to bound along and catch.After a moments persuasion from the children she hiked up her skirt and joined them swishing her feet in the water.Edward scoffed he couldn't think of anything worse than joining in the excursions of snot nosed kids, yet he found himself glancing repeatedly at the back of the girl as he made his way up the road.

He was just crossing when he heard a frustrated yet amused voice

"Edward Eddie come back here now"

Without having the chance to fully turn around he was engulfed by a white ball of fluff.

"Down Edward bad boy what have I told you about launching yourself on strangers"

The white ball of fluff apparently also named Edwards withdrew allowing him to see a fluffy white dog now in the arms of a girl with long slightly curly blonde hair, it was the girl, the one from the river.

"I'm so terribly sorry" she grimaced "I told him not to"

In normal situations Edward would have remarked that simply telling an unintelligent animal not to do something was hardly a good method of preventing unwanted circumstances. But he stopped himself , there was something about her that convinced him not to, perhaps it was her big doe like blue eyes now widened with concern, or the way she ran a delicate hand through her thick blonde shiny..

"are you sure your alright?"

Edward realised he'd been gawping at her , eyes glazed over but quickly came to,

"urm yeah I'm fine don't worry about it"

 

@KiyoshiSenshi it's a great thread! Makoto sounds adorable

 

@KiyoshiSenshi Your dolls always sound so cute!

I recently purchased a doll for I character I thought I would never shell. She is the only doll character I have made before finding a sculpt, mostly because I thought the concept was cute and also because I have a similar character in one of my stories. I know I said I would never shell story characters, especially since it seems to change them, but in the end, she isn't quite the same. And I was so surprised when I found an amazing shell because I've only seen one old tiny before and she didn't quite match.

No one knows her real name or can understand what she says, but she gets nicknamed Gobby by Ollie, the only person she likes to appear to. Unlike the other dolls, who see themselves as living dolls, Gobby really sees herself as a goblin. She was originally middle aged, but she's been aged up to a little old granny to suit her sculpt. She hides around the house, collecting things, taking food, and warding off threats with her spear. She is being shelled into a Dream High Studios Aldou, and she will be painted green with white hair on her head, in her ears, and on her hands, feet and eyebrows. She'll have a lot of piercings (a few rings in her ears and a stud in her nose), and probably a few scars from her escapades. She will probably be more fun to carry around than my SDs. I can't wait to pose her on different things.

 

@iamkathybrown --"Eyeglass case" dolls are ridiculously fun. My Daphne (AprilStory Minngu) gets to ride around in my bag a lot because she does fit into an eyeglasses case just so nicely. I can't wait to see Gobby in action! (I love brownies and little house gnomes and kindred spirits of that sort.)

 

Hello everyone. This thread looks like so much fun, and I'm enjoying reading about everyone's characters, so I thought I'd join in.

My characters are actually from a book I've been writing (or, you know, trying to) since roughly late 2005. I had intentions of shelling them as Barbies or BJDs even back then, but I was in middle school and really broke.Now that I've re-discovered the hobby as an adult and my story has matured/evolved into something that's not totally poop, I'm in the process of shelling just the two main characters. I won't shell the rest because it'd be too complicated, and honestly, most of the characters are awful and unlikable individuals.


My book follows the character Theo as he tries to make sense of his mother's sudden death and his struggle to find normality again. Most people won't talk to him because of his father's reputation, so his only "friend" is his godfather, Jason. He's a gentle giant who's all talk and no bite (he's suuuuuper snarky/sassy), who refuses to physically fight back. Most people think he's all macho and stuck up, but he's actually a very nervous individual who's just really good at playing cool. I'm planning on shelling him with Nandoll's Issac head sculpt, since I love the facial structure for Theo. I imagine him as being roughly a sophomore or junior in high school. I'm undecided on his eye or hair color, as my storytelling style doesn't require he have a physical description. (I'm open to suggestions, as I need to finish planning his BJD form!)

The other character I'm shelling is Gwen. She struggled her whole life just to make it, and if I had to describe her as a color I would pick gray. Her shell is DF-H's Xiao Xin head on their 1/3 Female body. She has mossy green eyes, with her hair color undecided. (Again, I'm welcome to suggestions.) Gwen struggles with Bulimia Nervosa and is incredibly unstable the entirety of the book. She also deals with severe anxiety, and is essentially drowning in her own internal struggle. However, as someone who has battled with eating disorders and severe anxiety for the vast majority of my own life, I decided to not shell her as she is in the story. Instead I'm shelling her as I imagine she'd be many years through her recovery, and I consider her part of my recovery too. Her character in the book is roughly 14 to 16 years old, and in BJD form she's in her mid-twenties.

Despite the dark aura of these characters, the book is actually a rather vibrant fantasy novel. Their are powers, multiple dimensions, etc. My hope is that the excitement and the pace of the story will get people thinking about these serious topics, without getting buried beneath their incredibly heavy emotional weight, if that makes sense? I know they're weird, and I didn't write enough about them to really explain their characters, but I hope ya'll don't mind my short description of Theo and Gwen. Also, I can post more about their characters or their story if anyone is interested.
​

 

I've never been one for shelling oc's at all--I just kinda see sculpts that I fall in love with and develop characters based on them.
However, recently I've been thinking about my next purchases and have kind of developed this story for my next girls!

I think they will both be minifees, a Chloe in ns (I know, typical) and a tan skin Mirwen (subject to change...). They'll be twins. I don't have their background story completely thought out, but I know that I want them to be from some other galaxy, for them to not be human but more...supernatural. And they live amongst the humans on earth (my other dollies) gathering data and trying their best to blend in. That's pretty much all I got so far lol. I think I like the names Venus and Nova, but these may change because they seem a bit generic.

MNF Chloe (Venus) would be super pastel and have a glittery angelic feel to her. She's obnoxiously positive all the time and is fascinated and in love with the human race. MNF Mirwen (Nova) has a darker look to her, more gothic looking. She's disgusted by the humans, seeing them as inferior. She acts like she's always annoyed by her sister, but does everything she can to protect and care for her spacey/naive sister. She's overall serious and work-oriented. Later on in the story I see her getting close to a few humans.

I don't know if these characters will stick or if I'll actually ever end up shelling them...I also need to figure out when Fairyland sells tan resin because thats been confusing me...it's just fun to let my imagination run wild!

 

I keep having characters happen to me... Though lately, at least most of them fit neatly into my new writing project! I have too many floating characters.

Jerome- is the new floating character. He's a magic user, though I don't know if he belongs in a high- or urban- fantasy world... Just that he uses music to cast his magic and that he loves to read.

And then the following is all for the new horror novel/novella thing I'm just barely starting:

Thomas Jones- Part of the experimental rock group Glass Labyrinth. He insists on being 'Thomas' and never, under any circumstances, 'Tom'. More of an introvert off-stage, he would rather not be the face of the band, he just wants to create art badly enough to put himself in the limelight in spite of being shy and retiring by nature. He would also do absolutely anything for his bandmates. He named the band after the scariest thing he could think of at the time, describing it as being too confusing to find your way out of if you didn't know it, but the minotaur inside would know where every opening through the maze was, and would be able to see exactly where in it you were (a concept his bandmates did not follow at all, but they did agree that it sounded cool). An autodidact who seeks constant self-improvement, he plays multiple instruments, though on stage he generally sticks to hiding behind his keyboard. Once in a while he'll step out from behind it to do a guitar bit.

Tony- The band's drummer. Tony is the mom friend-- somewhat at odds with the stereotypes surrounding drummers for rock bands. A lot of dry snark and teasing, when he's not trying to force someone into taking care of themselves. Actually, also when he is.

Jean- Plays bass-- generally recorded, as he shares lead guitar duties with Thomas. His onstage persona is very quiet and focused-- a virtuoso. His relationship with Tony is playfully combative. He and Thomas are more mutually protective of each other-- Thomas because Jean tends to be an asshole magnet whenever they go out to bars or make stops in drive-through country, Jean because Thomas is 98 pounds soaking wet but keeps putting himself in front of drunks who want to punch people.

Joseph Klein Schafer- Joey or JK to his peers, Yossel to his dad's family, NightoftheLepus online. He's twenty-three, a university drop-out, stuck at home in the small town of Mercy Hills, and recovering from a recent breakdown, aided by a well-meaning close family (Jacob, Maria, and David), the personal relationship he feels with his favorite music and how it speaks to his queerness and struggles with mental illness, and his best friend, who he's only known online until just before Everything Happens. When stresses seem to build up all over town, the one bright spot seems to be that The Glass Labyrinth is stuck in the nowhere dump that is Mercy Falls... and if he can just be in the right place at the right time, Joseph might get to meet his heroes.

Adam Lang- Studious, hard-working, and greatly put-upon by familial expectation, Adam quickly became infatuated with the one person his age who seemed to understand him-- and managed to get the money together for a flight out to see him, when invited. However, the money for his flight was just about the only money he had-- that and enough to eat very frugally-- so when he arrives and discovers he will be staying in a small bedroom in a suburban family home (with a suburban family), rather than in an apartment, it's a bit of a shock, but one he can't afford to escape, since he can't get a hotel or change his return flight to something sooner. And as his displeasure with the arrangement and with Joseph mounts, other forces seem to conspire to keep him in Mercy Hills.

Ada, Katie, and Aviva- Those Three Girls. They're Joseph's age and Katie and Ada in particular are fellow fans of The Glass Labyrinth, though they don't really know him. Ada alternately refers to the three of them as a girl gang or, like, a 'cool coven' (despite Katie's protests that she's not in any way a witch). If they had crossed paths in school, they actually would have let Joseph be an honorary girl so that he could join the gang, but he was skipped out of their grade back before middle school, and never did meet them until all four go looking for The Glass Labyrinth downtown. Among the three, Ada is the blonde (though it is dyed an unnatural color), Katie the redhead, and Aviva the brunette. They have bonded over being weird and creative and over-invested in things. Ada and Aviva share an apartment downtown, Katie-- like Joseph-- still lives at home. (Ada has shown up in so many things I write as just a background girl or filling in some side role for a single scene... she's useful like that I guess. But now she's got a home-story!)

 

@Anneko - I don't think you're alone in having characters just "happen" to you. Characters happen to me all the time. I'm very observant and a notorious people-watcher, and I can find inspiration just about anywhere, so this is pretty common for me as well.

Here's a question for people. I'm constantly imagining my characters in various everyday situations,most of which are quite ordinary and mundane, which wouldn't really be the basis of an actual story. Yet, I still think of a lot of these things as "canon" to my characters' world and story, even if it never gets a mention in any actual writing. Some of these things do have the potential to find their way into a story, of course, but a lot of them are just snippets or scenes I've written down (or not) that I keep for my own entertainment/future reference. Does anyone else do this?

 

I tend to be pretty plot focused, at least in my written stories, so it anything mundane happens, it is usually worked into the plot. But if there is something I want to write that would be impossible to put in the main story (from things that happen before it to backstories that aren't on a need to know basis to gender swap AUs) I write them at the end of the document under the heading "Omake". And if I ever put the story online, I'll post them whenever I decide to take a break or something.

But I don't actually write my dolls stories, so any omakes would happens write after I post the photostory, when I get around to photostories. I think those would consist of breaking character after a costumed photoshoot, or something that happens before or after the story.

 

@KiyoshiSenshi I also like thinking about my characters' everyday lives, I think because it makes them more "real" to me if I know details about them like what their favourite colours are, what they'd do if they got caught in the rain on the way home, or what they like for breakfast. I think those sorts of things shape a character, even if the more mundane details aren't in the story. And I do it with my more fantasy-ish characters, too. They're still people, even if they're 70cm tall or come from the Netherworld

 

I write little tid-bits of ordinary stuff. Sometimes that makes it into a novel, sometimes not. I am constantly thinking about my guys though. To sound completely delusional, they're quite real to me as individuals with likes, dislikes, quirks, habits, thought patterns, etc. I know they're not actually real people but they live a life in my imagination that I try my best to bring to life on the pages of my books. I like to think I succeed at that.

 

@Iron_Dog that doesn't sound delusional to me. My characters are as alive and real to me in my imagination as actual people are in the physical world. I mean, I know they aren't actually real people but they are "alive" in a certain way.

 

I do that all the time. Lots more than writing. Sometimes I do write those things down, just to be able to re-read later and find my way back into the story if I haven't done anything with it in a while ... I have too many characters and too many dolls to keep track of everyone's story at once, so they take turns. Most likely the ones on whose doll avatars I'm currently working are getting the most attention.

 

If I love a character, they have been grocery shopping in my head. I mean, I do also write simple, everyday scenes all the time, but yeah... I think the big one tends to be just... knowing what a character shops for, what habits they have.

 

I am constantly surprised by little things that pop up about certain characters. Like I thought Moswen would like the colour red because he's such a vivid person. Only nope. He hates it. Kijika can't stand getting rained on and it makes him Mr. Grumpypants for like an hour after getting caught in the rain. Quinn's favourite pizza is by Pizza Pizza and is their Thai chicken & broccoli on a thin crust with extra feta. Aischylos finds coding relaxing. Rhas-Khan does needlework to relax.

Finding out those tiny, not important to the story at all bits makes the characters so much more real to me (and hopefully to my readers, too).