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rainbowlounge2023-07-06 02:30 pm
silvercat17) wrote in rainbowlounge2023-07-06 02:30 pm
Entry tags:
Blorbo Blursday
It's Blorbo Blursday, so tell us about the character currently occupying all your thoughts. Here are some optional questions:
Who is your most written oc and who is your least written?
What sort of tropes does your oc fall under?
Maybe fill out the Nanowrimo character questionnaire - https://blog.nanowrimo.org/post/61118193819/nano-prep-the-official-nanowrimo-character
Who is your most written oc and who is your least written?
What sort of tropes does your oc fall under?
Maybe fill out the Nanowrimo character questionnaire - https://blog.nanowrimo.org/post/61118193819/nano-prep-the-official-nanowrimo-character
A wall of words, apologies.
Who is your most written oc and who is your least written?
I have too many OCs to answer that first question, also because I kind of struggle with who should qualify for an OC in this context. I could say "the main characters" and leave out the "NPCs" but buddy. That line fluctuates. Many of my OCs started out as minor background characters and then developed, because even if they are minor characters, I want them to make sense! And then I get attached to them.
Funnily enough, I created Festus Hunnicutt to be a main character, but he barely got off the ground. I have a lot of fondness for characters who tend to be passive and gentle, but the simple fact is that that does not make for a good protagonist.
Contrast that with Shen Shanwei, who was supposed to be a snooty goon of the protagonist's foil, not important to the plot. 350K words later he is having a peak soap opera moment that's too complex even to explain, with a wedding, people getting stabbed, old enemies and past secrets coming into play, and a thoroughly delicious internal conflict.
What sort of tropes does your oc fall under?
First of all, I want to say that tropes are something I find really useful as a writer, especially when they can be contrasted, explored, expanded on and subverted--the subversion sometimes follows directly simply from exploring a trope and figuring out how to make it actually work in a way that makes sense.
Especially minor character tropes! Terry Pratchett was a master of this. He would take the fat girl with good hair who follows her cooler friends around and BAM, that's your main character now and you will love her because actually she's smart and kind and insecure and she knows a lot about pigs, which is more important than being cool. The crone who lives alone in the cottage is the BAMFest individual you will ever read about. The beat cop, the barmaid, the goblin. I am not saying I am at Pterry's level, but this was clearly important to him and it's important to me too. Look closely at these characters written to not be important or cool or aspirational. They're the interesting ones.
Also minor characters are allowed to be flawed in fundamental ways... they aren't supposed to be aspirational. They don't need to be redeemed. They can pursue their own agendas rather than a grand ideal. Bringing side characters up to main character status is also something I love in fanfiction.
But okay, to answer the actual question, and stay on Shen Shanwei, since he's having his moment and all--
1. The ice queen - disdainful, mocking, and mean. Trope deconstruction: Easily embarrassed and distrustful of people, and a perfectionist, he hides behind a forbidding exterior.
2. Momma's boy - submissive to older women and seeks affection and validation from them, like he was still a little boy. Trope deconstruction: He received love from women growing up, and violence from men afterwards, and now naively associates older women with comfort and safety.
3. Femme fatale - uses seductiveness as a means of lowering a target's guard. Trope deconstruction: This is an act. In a lot of media we see this character type falling for the person they are deceptively seducing, as a height of romance or an ego boost to the protagonist, which I think is a not very realistic... They are intentionally projecting sensuality which does not reflect who they really are. Shen Shanwei was afraid of his targets (two, in the story so far) and loathed the idea of actually letting them touch him, but used his acting experience and talent to go into character and become what they wanted. And he was a virgin at the time!
I would say those are the main tropes that attach to him, at least from my point of view. Maybe other aspects of his personality are more central, or a reader would latch on to other things, but these at least are very clearly tropes.
Re: A wall of words, apologies.
Contrast that with Shen Shanwei, who was supposed to be a snooty goon of the protagonist's foil
LOL, I know the feeling on this sort of thing. Although they both sound like fun characters! Most of yours do. And I am definitely intrigued by what this highly complicated situation Shen Shanwei now finds himself in is, because it sounds deeply entertaining. But poor old Hunnicutt! I hope he still turns up in the background from time to time.
(Also Pterry. <3)
Re: A wall of words, apologies.
And no need to apologize for a long response. It's great
GNU Terry Pratchett
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In my scifi story, it is truly an ensemble cast with everyone equally sharing the spotlight, so I'm gonna focus on my Briarwood Scrolls series for this question. By far, my most written oc in that verse is October and his best friend Cameron. The funny thing is that he was introduced with the intention of making him an antagonist for the main heroes, but he ended up with a character arc of his own and is now more of an anti-hero than an actual bad guy. I didn't realize how much fun I was going to have developing his character and backstory. Also, his dialogue flows more naturally for me than a lot of my other ocs, since he's a very sarcastic and unfiltered sort of character.
My least written is probably Sheppard right now. I need to do more writing for him, as I still don't have a clearly defined personality or "voice" for him yet, and that usually comes after I've practiced writing a character enough. Maybe I'll focus on him for some of my prompt fills on the color lists.
What sort of tropes does your oc fall under?
Glancing through the TV tropes website, I think October definitely falls under "jerk with a heart of gold", "sarcasm mode", "defrosting ice queen", and "immortal apathy". His relationship with Cameron would fall under "vitriolic best buds" and "aw look, they really do love each other!"
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LOL, it seems that we all have the same problem around here on this sort of thing. (I'm just going to make this annoying background person/secondary antagonist OH WHOOPS.)
Sarcasm is a great bonus when writing, though.
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Currently, in the canon I'm mainly writing at the moment (Starfall), a secondary world fantasy (but probably somewhere way in the future in another, but very similar universe, I feel) my head is full of two characters from twenty years before the main plot (again?), which I am writing offline for fun and because sometimes I just need to worldbuild organically by writing stuff. BUt I have typed up some bits with them in and am looking forward to feeling up to editing things and posting again.
My most written character so far, even if I've managed to keep his share of what's been posted so far down a bit, is Marran Delver, because I needed someone to be an antagonist in the sense of being in opposition to the main characters for his own reasons but not an actual villain, but then he got up to all sorts and became a major character in his own right instead, so we all seem to have the same runaway minor character syndrome going on. He's currently the Governor of a District in the main country I'm writing about (1 of 8 District Governors, I think), but he had to go a long way round to get there, and is behaving to one of the proper main characters, Leaira, in a weird way that she isn't sure what to make of yet.
My mind always goes blank when I'm asked to think in tropes, but there's often some sort of arranged/convenient marriage scenario going on whenever I'm doing backstory, so there's that, I suppose.
late but
He falls under:
Manchild (affectionate)
As Tvtropes names it, 'Split Personality'. Unlike most portrayals of systems in media, however, this isn't the stereotypical Good Jekyll & Evil Hyde situation that makes systems everywhere groan and moan but a Silly Duskie, Edgy Odio, and Knight Who's Just There, lol Situation
Adaptional Sexuality & Adaptional Gender Identity (While his base character, Oersted, had no canon sexuality outside of being implied to be straight by default, and is also implied to be cis by default, Duskie himself is bi & trans!)
Do Not Call Me "Paul" (only like. Sundown can call Duskie 'Oersted' without him getting upset.)
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I have one character that I still want to write - I think his title is The Marked Man and his name is undetermined, even though I tried to plan out the story a while back. Essentially a wanderer with no home, who ends up wandering a post-apocalyptic world (the Nature Reclaims Everything sort of apocalypse, something that happened a long time ago and no one really remembers) with a young girl who inexplicably claims that she needs him. He has memory blackouts every now and then and finds himself far from where he started, and often with evidence that he's done terrible things; he doesn't know why, and the working theory is that something possesses him because of the mark on his forehead, so no one would trust him but no one would dare to harm him, either.
(It was not meant as a reference to the Mark of Cain. But now that I look at it, it definitely is.)
I've never really tried to write an OC outside of their own story in original fiction. Maybe I should try to do that sometime.
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The Marked Man sounds interesting!
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