DE: Whose line is it?

[bjornwilde]

Just posted Monday but too perfect a follow up to yesterday's DE, thebesteverseen asks:

What are your personal steps to a new character? Like when do you collect icons, how much time do you spend on your profile, layout, journal names, background or related areas of character research? What order do you do them in? What's most important? Do you test first or canonball in? I'd love to know about *your* process before your character walk in through The Front Door that first time.

Comments

[bjornwilde]

The steps vary quite a lot on the pup I've noticed. Journal name can be the first thing and then icons, or icons and then background story, or even OOM ideas/pup interactions and then journal name/icons.

I tend to not do a lot of pre-game research outside of canon. This has mostly worked but I can think of a couple examples where some basic research into military life and ballistics would have been good.

Actually, there was one pup, Palamedes, where I tried to do a lot of research and I found the research got in the way of the pup. I had all these great ideas for the character but by the time I did the research and applied it to the pup, it became a round hole with a square shape, i.e. the pup no longer fit the canon.

I also need to decide where in canon the pup is coming before I bring them to Milliways. Some pups want their whole story told while others are fine walking in for what happens after.

I guess ultimately I have to let the pup decide as if I try and force anything, the voice throws its hands up and says, "Fine you do it", leaving me holding the bag as it were.

ETA: ALso, I never bother with journal layout as I figure no one wil ever see it. ; p

[kd7sov]

Icons are... sort of half irrelevant to the process? Like I told Lee in yesterday's DE, I'm always collecting icons, for just about everyone, whether I think I can/want to/should play them or not. That said...

Step 1 is to be sure I have the voice.
(1a: test the voice in a sandbox [optional])
2: Be sure I have the canon. I refuse to try to play any character if I don't have ready access to their canon.
3: Create the journal. Usually I'm happy with the first name that comes to mind, and it's very nearly always open.
4: Futz around with profile and app, and optionally layout.
5: Send the app.

[ceitfianna]

This is different for every character and I really don't have a set plan.

For book characters, I need to have a PB before I test them out since if I don't have the right face, they don't click.

In terms of the others, there's nothing terribly solid for me, having icon options always helps. I didn't think I could play Charles until I actually found icons of him that were playable. Once I did then he started to work better for me and I began to test him. I prefer to test out characters a little before playing just to see if their voice is solid, because with Will I jumped right in when I had no idea what I was doing. Since then I like some time to figure things out.

Icons are always key for me as I need to have the right expressions, this is why I end up making a lot of my icons. Its annoying when there are well known and beautiful movies, but no one icons things like James McAvoy's eyebrows or Anne Hathaway's Jane looks. I know icons have trends but that's why I end up making fairly simple icons to get those expressions.

Creating the journal usually happens in the midst of testing in a sandbox and at that point, its just a matter of when I'll app them. Usernames are always a matter of chance in terms of what's available and what ideas I have as well as chat's help. I love Charles' username because I kept trying different combinations and balancingminds was free and it all clicked.

I did more with journal layout on LJ and for Demeter and Tiwa, I've saved their pretty layouts as I made the graphics. For the others, that's something I always do later if I have the time. I do love layouts but they're not of great importance for me.

[cameoflage]

Step 1: Go get lots of icons. Modify them if necessary. Make my own if necessary.
Step 2: Make a journal. Name it something cool. Failing that, name it something embarrassing. (For the character.) Nicknames the character's been given in canon are good.
Step 3a: Prune icons down to 15 essentials and upload them all. Write descriptions, there's at least one blind mun here. (Trying to give Chanter some clue of what's going on in the icons in the event that we ever thread is also why I got into the habit of giving my icons fairly utilitarian keywords, since LJ doesn't have an image description field.)
Step 3b: Make the journal look pretty, even though I'm not convinced anyone's going to be looking at it since I've never done an OOM.
Step 4: Chuck the character into m_m and PFSB, whether this means writing their own EP or bothering other sandbox pups.
Step 5: Write up at least a bare-bones description in their journal profile -- appearance bits not covered by icons, age, nationality, home time period, any superpowers worth mentioning -- to give fellow sandboxers some kind of clue who they're dealing with. If it gets long and unwieldy (like with one of my OCs, who has several weird backstory incidents stacked on top of each other and three completely unrelated superpowers), make a journal post to cover it all.

3a and 3b can be in either order.

If I plan to actually take them to Milliways, which I can't do with an OC (or someone who's already taken -- once upon a time I got a Lone Wanderer headvoice after Ellen had already made herself at home here, and Cam Senior does a better job with worldbuilding and OOMing anyway), then Step 6 is APP BOSS FIGHT. Apps scare me, man. But at least I can get away with just sending in a rambling summary type of thing.

Canon review is, like, Step 0. That comes when I've only partially made up my mind that I even want to RP the character.

[bjornwilde]

Totally hear you on the Boss App. I am in the middle of two right now and they are intimidating! I can't imagine playing in one of the places with tougher application protocols.