Everyone I knew is dead

Started by Sonata January 31st, 2016 12:01 AM
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  • 22 replies

Sonata

Don't let me disappear

Age 27
Male
Indiana
Seen 7 Hours Ago
Posted March 25th, 2023
13,619 posts
10.2 Years
What kind of histories do you prefer for your characters? Do you enjoy the darker more painful ones, or the ones that are more filled with hope towards the future?

Quest

Veteran Roleplayer

Male
Seen January 6th, 2023
Posted May 3rd, 2020
984 posts
14 Years
I mean, it 100% depends on the RP/story for me to make that decision. There are times where I join RPs and almost every character is an orphan or had seen hideous things as a child that still affect them throughout the RP. Its even worse when the RP doesn't require anything special in terms of history. Your character could be a completely normal person before the RP start. I understand this can happen, of course, but sometimes I find it too much. A good example is Atlantis Awakening. A character could have lived a completely normal life until they found out that they were an Atlantean, which is where the RP starts.

I suppose I am guilty of this though, as one of my most recent characters (Mikara from Star Wars) didn't exactly live a good life.

Nonetheless, I guess that makes me a person who prefers characters whose history is rather normal.
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gimmepie

Age 27
Male
Australia
Seen 7 Hours Ago
Posted 16 Hours Ago
I think my characters generally lean towards the "my life sucked" side of things, however I don't have a preference towards that. MY characters just pop into my head more or less fully formed, sometimes they had bad lives and sometimes good.
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jombii

Crobat is ProBat

Male
Philippines
Seen June 28th, 2019
Posted April 13th, 2019
3,412 posts
8.9 Years
History-wise, I don't think I wrote a lot of characters with too much drama and darkness in their history. I made some characters with a little darkness in them, a touch of rebelliousness here and there, but not something with a mentor or a parent dead. I just don't feel comfortable writing about sad characters. Solitary ones are okay, but sad is just... sad.

moon

they/them
Seen 11 Hours Ago
Posted 23 Hours Ago
37,443 posts
15.5 Years
I think I've often made very bright characters with easy pasts, to counter all the sad dark pasts of other people's characters haha. I seldom make them orphans - most often I give them proper families, usually with two parents and some siblings.

Notable exceptions are Aberdeen from Crossroads, whose sister died (but that was crucial for his personality) and Ash from Astra Story who had grown up with only one "parent" and a pretty weird one at that. But to Ash's defense, it's a Homestuck RP and things are always weird there.
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Hexoc

Azumarill Lover

Male
Around the Gulf of Mexico
Seen February 19th, 2016
Posted February 8th, 2016
68 posts
7.7 Years
I tend to have something tragic in backstories simply to allow for some fears, scars(both physical and mental), and/or bad habits to emerge. Plus, it allows for a nice ark of getting over the past if you want to go that route on a character.
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SV

See You Space Cowboy

Male
Seen February 7th, 2022
Posted June 26th, 2019
3,393 posts
12.1 Years
I mean, it 100% depends on the RP/story for me to make that decision. There are times where I join RPs and almost every character is an orphan or had seen hideous things as a child that still affect them throughout the RP. Its even worse when the RP doesn't require anything special in terms of history. Your character could be a completely normal person before the RP start. I understand this can happen, of course, but sometimes I find it too much. A good example is Atlantis Awakening. A character could have lived a completely normal life until they found out that they were an Atlantean, which is where the RP starts.

I suppose I am guilty of this though, as one of my most recent characters (Mikara from Star Wars) didn't exactly live a good life.

Nonetheless, I guess that makes me a person who prefers characters whose history is rather normal.
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I'll also add that in situations where I do make my characters more traumatized or have a less-than-normal background, I try to point to one or a couple of key points in their life which influenced them to be the way they are.


A Legend once told me that roleplaying is about bringing people together and celebrating creative vision.
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Oddball_

Magical Senpai and god of the closet.

Age 24
They/Them
Seattle, WA
Seen 4 Weeks Ago
Posted May 17th, 2019
866 posts
8.5 Years
Depends, I find that conflict is alot easier to write about than butterflies and rainbows, but it really does matter 100% on the RP.

But most of my new characters have had conflict driven pasts, although I kind of cheated and made Gosu an amnesiac so I wouldn't have to spoil too much history. Its gonna be REALLY good. :3



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Ozymandias

i'm going on a journey

under your bed
Seen March 10th, 2021
Posted February 24th, 2021
1,069 posts
10 Years
Mm I definitely used to always make my character's pasts really dark and such, but then I began to think that was cliche and started making normal pasts.

Now like Kirky said it's all depends on the RP itself as to how I make my character's history
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Judge Mandolore Shepard

Spectre Agent

Age 35
Male
Marysville, Washington State, United States
Seen March 1st, 2018
Posted March 1st, 2018
9,433 posts
9.2 Years
Looking at certain RP characters I have created, I noticed that they have had a bad experience in their past. (eg: loss of a family member, or unable to use a certain body part)
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Jauntier

Where was your antennas again?

Male
USA
Seen April 6th, 2018
Posted December 23rd, 2017
690 posts
7.8 Years
My preference in writing my character's histories is usually something neutral or typical. Unless my character takes on a "darker" role, I will include some dark elements, but I don't often get so dramatic with it. Some people have their characters suffer through anything and everything awful under the sun, with pedophilia, rape, inheriting or depreciating into severe mental illness or PTSD, natural or biochemical disaster that took nearly everyone they loved, brutal and overly-bloody murder, torture and dismemberment, and even death itself. I wouldn't mind it if they actually wrote and continued to portray how their characters suffered from things so wretched, but it's easy to list tragedies--not so to reflect on them. I opt not to bother with all that mess and flanderize my character so terribly.

Likewise, I don't attempt to write backgrounds about perfect lives. Uneventful maybe, sure, but I don't try to write characters that had the best of everything. It's so painfully boring to me to try and cram all those societal positives in, I honestly wouldn't know how to even go about it.

I instead like to focus on some quirks or oddities. I think it's the little details that can flavor a character uniquely. As for whether or not I like to write characters with hope for the future, it depends. My characters range from nihilistic to bounding for an event-filled tomorrow in the short-term.
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Out Of My Mind
Seen August 18th, 2021
Posted February 2nd, 2021
399 posts
9.4 Years
I would like to think that I'm not too depressing when I write my SUs for characters, but now that I actually saw this post I realized how many of my characters have really sad backgrounds. I suppose that's something I'll need to work on, but often I think that the background of my characters is something that makes sense within the roleplay. I put up an SU recently about a person who found an ad online about fighting monsters. Who in their right mind would answer an ad like that? Probably someone who is not thinking straight, aka traumatized.

But I do think I need more variety with my characters. Or at the very least I need to stop killing their parents with cancer.

Candy

Age 26
Female
In OJ Land
Seen 4 Days Ago
Posted August 22nd, 2020
3,813 posts
14.2 Years
At least the only character I've made here doesn't have such a tragic backstory hahaha.

But I will admit that I like really psyducked up backstories, even though I try to find a good balance between depressing backstories and regular backstories. It tends to tip over the tragic ones more.

Unless the setting is some sort of daily life setting. If that's the case, I tend to make a normal character without some sort of "MY PARENTS ARE DEAD" situation.
_
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Crash Fever

FireSnow

Show me that Fighting Spirit

Age 27
Male
Ambrette Town, Kalos
Seen August 20th, 2021
Posted October 3rd, 2020
2,644 posts
7.7 Years
I tend to go the happy route 80% of the time. I like having a traditional family that raises my character well and is well-meaning. I also like to essentially orphan my characters, the other 20%, but not because of a tragic past. I like to give my character hope that they will find their parents, siblings, friends, whoever is missing from their life. I find it to be more interesting to write when y character has hope for a better future or continuation of a good life.

Foxrally

ya boi
a Torterra's back
Seen 9 Hours Ago
Posted 3 Weeks Ago
2,783 posts
10.1 Years
Looking back, I actually think almost everyone has a mukty backstory (thought not everyone has death in it). Nerites lost her sisters, Elliott his dad, and Jairo & Sahn have lost a lot too (which will be revealed in due time). The only exceptions I can think of are Boog who didn't really have any family (being the boogeyman and all) and Sophia who had a pretty badass life but psyducked it up when she murdered someone. (dammit soph)
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Ice

Seen October 16th, 2022
Posted February 3rd, 2020
3,448 posts
8.8 Years
It honestly depends. I like to be a bit vague in my backstories. There doesn't tend to be a certain shaping event that molded their lives, as I want their experiences in the RP to be that. The tone of the backstory heavily depends on the character. It's what the character needs. If they're happy/positive, they probably have a fairly uneventful growing up, although it was a positive backstory. For darker characters, maybe they have less pleasant events in their past, or one that doesn't fit with their personality.

Winter

KAMISATO ART: SOUMETSU

Age 26
they/them/she/her
Kamisato Estate
Seen December 2nd, 2022
Posted September 29th, 2022
8,320 posts
8.2 Years
Dark.

Just look at my latest SU, for MD: The Grand Expedition.

Even if I try to go light and less negative or depressing, there's always a shadow lurking somewhere.

Sonata

Don't let me disappear

Age 27
Male
Indiana
Seen 7 Hours Ago
Posted March 25th, 2023
13,619 posts
10.2 Years
I tend to write more on the everything sucks, everyone is dead, oh woe is me side of things. I've only made two SUs with happy pasts. I think its easier to have more fun and grow as a character with a darker history.
Female
Seen August 4th, 2016
Posted April 16th, 2016
64 posts
7.3 Years
Imo it depends on the setting.

When it comes to your standard Pokemon journey story, a modern setting, etc., it seems very dramatic and a little overdone for the character to have been, idk, the sole survivor of a serial killer's rampage that destroyed his family and his childhood sweetheart, or something, you know? That doesn't mean they can't have experienced smaller struggles, but typically they're things that are more standard-- grew apart from the family, cut ties with a sibling, feel stifled by the family's constant overbearing rules, etc.

That said, I have written in a setting where my characters were born and shaped by a really vicious, awful war, and those backstories were often darker. Had a character (nice, little bit lazy, charming dude) who had tortured prisoners; had a character who was bribed to murder his ex and proceeded to a few more people before shifting gears and ending up in a perfectly normal, if not very happy, relationship, etc. The difference is that in these cases, that kind of backstory is normal; it's weird if they haven't been hit by even a little spillover from the devastation of the war, so. SHRUGS.

Shak

Male
UK
Seen March 15th, 2023
Posted March 14th, 2023
944 posts
8.3 Years
I'm a sucker for a metaphorical story that ties up and goes full circle. I don't really care which end of the darkness spectrum it falls on, but it should always foreshadow what's going to happen in future as subtly, but clearly as possible.



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Retro Bug

Seen July 18th, 2016
Posted May 27th, 2016
1,176 posts
14.8 Years
Honestly, I try to stay away from dark histories unless I can do them justice. I see so many people have these dark and tragic history, but it never seems to affect their character as if it had never happened. Which is really odd to me, you'd think if all that stuff happened to their character there would at least be a single mention throughout the RP, but there's nothing, nada. Unless I can commit to a character that has that past and accurately reflect it in their character I won't make a character like that.

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The Meta Journey
Male
Junkertown
Seen April 17th, 2018
Posted December 1st, 2017
261 posts
9.3 Years
Backstories are purely for context, even in RPs that have significantly detailed histories behind them. Something brief should always be included, but if you want to delve into things more, there's no need to make things bad.

One mistake people always make is victmising the character when they're a child. Children make bad decisions, y'know, and sometimes they think things are bad when they're not. Just slapping together parental death and other tragic things shows inexperience and the inability to understand how the mind and backstories work. For simple things, listing or detailing events that defined key traits in the character, as mentioned prior, is what backstories are for. Tragedy for the sake of it (or no reason at all) is just a stupid waste of time.

As for myself, I have to admit I typically make characters who have had pretty rough upbringings or just a period in life when everything was going badly. Defining their character as something else then having some events in their backstory alter them into the person they are today (at the time of the application) is something I enjoy doing. Most of characters that are like this are much older, though. For younger characters I tend to make them more pure and directed, and aim them towards something that will make them question themselves, for the sake of character development and progression.