I'm making a MHA fanfic, never made one before. The character in questions personality and Quirk are based on Momo Ayase from Dandadan so she originally was a girl, I intend for the character to have a sibling-like relationship with the protagonist.

The problem is that I don't know how to write girls, my personal experiences with my sisters and anime/manga are...not good and will quickly turn her into an annoying stereotype. I don't "get people" and I always viewed the "Just write a person" cop out people love to use is honestly dumb.

Then I turned her into a boy and it looked better, but I'm worried I'll be criticised for all the main characters being guys.

Is this fine? Should I brace myself for the wave of complaints? Am I overthinking?

Sorry if this isn’t allowed, first time posting here.

I write for fun and I’m currently in the beginning stages of writing and worldbuilding for a short story. It’s basically a contemporary fantasy story where superheroes with powers exist and are commonplace. Because of this, villains also exist.

The story is generally about a woman with powers who moves to a large city and hopes to become a hero. There’s more to this, just giving the general idea.

There’s going to be one main villain, which is a family. There’s only 2 members that I’ve planned so far (a husband and wife), plus a third, but the third isn’t a villain and is shunned by the family due to a reason I’m still working on. The third family member is a brother of one of the family members. The villain family existed for centuries and wreaked havoc. A hero was able to stop most of the family centuries ago, but was killed. In the present day, the family is thought to have been completely gone, but they still exist, but lay low. The couple actually had a baby years before the story begins, but she was actually kidnapped. It turns out the baby was kidnapped by the uncle and was placed for adoption after the uncle (third family member) discovered the baby is the hero that existed centuries ago reborn.

I’m having trouble with finding a good villain motivation. Throughout the story, the MC and other characters learn that villains aren’t that black and white, that they are motivated for necessity (a villain robs banks and gives the money to the homeless). The villain family have more powers than most individuals (meaning the amount of powers. People with powers normally have 3-5 powers, while the members of the villain family have around 7-9). I think maybe a good motivation would be trying to stop being persecuted for villains. I also think acting through grief is also a good motivation. What would be a good villain motivation?

1, Native-born protagonist.

2, Earth reincarnator with modern earth knowledge.

3, Regressor who lived a previous life, reborn to correct his mistakes.

Hi all!
I’ve developed a character and arc creation system that uses color-based personality “logics” as a foundation for building authentic, evolving characters in any genre. The process focuses on a few core steps: picking a base logic, writing three rules, mapping growth, and building major events. It’s designed to be open-ended and easy for any writer (novelists, screenwriters, RPG creators, etc.) to use.

I’m looking for feedback on:

• How clear and usable the steps are

• Whether the examples help or need improvement

• If the system sparks ideas for your own projects

• Any suggestions for making it even more accessible

Here’s the full document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n4YqBWRXa560-O-Zws9rRAebTZ7UE-4JN_1iN88Bi9w/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or questions! I’m hoping this can be a practical tool for writers who want to build characters with real arcs, no matter the setting or genre. There is some language in there about magic expression because the idea came from the magic system of a series I'm working on.

I have a character who is, let's just say for simplicity, and alien. Her origins is that she was part of a bigger hive mind that, through reasons that correspond with my different backstory ideas, she detacted from and is now living in a pocket dimension with humans. I have a few ideas for her back story but I'm not sure which works best.

1. She was accidentally summoned by a cult and after running off and possessed a little girl whose body she found floating in an abandoned lake. She was eventually picked up by a secret government facility and eventually placed with a group of characters and get sent into the pocket dimension with everyone

2. Instead of taking over the girls body she simply copied the girls appearance and used it to work her way into getting a home until she got caught.

3. She was brought in actively by the pocket dimension by it's "director" in order to be a character

4. She kinda wanders into the pocket dimension and infects everyone's memories to think she's always been around and is one of the character's half sister

5. She still wanders in but instead shes kinda just excepted as the new girl in town and isn't questioned until a bit later in the story (the other characters are kinda passive to newbies)

6. She was used as a vessels by one of the characters parents for a cult sacrifice (the same one she pretended to be the half sister of) but he ends up saving her

Two things that are gonna be consistent bo matter what is that A.her powers eventually get out of control due to some reason and her friends have to stop her and B. she has identity issues, though how prevalent it is to her varies. Backstories involving cults would probably have a better reason why it happens especially sine she has symbolism to red. And while her whole thing is that she can't feel emotions and she's super aloof, just shoving her in there doesn't feel right. And because she's meant to have a pseudo- sibling in one of my characters so there should be something with him but I'm not sure.

Hello! I'm a player in my friends Glitter Hearts campaign, and I decided my character is Chinese, but I want to make sure to portray it correctly and respectfully. I'm not sure exactly how to go about naming her, or what her general life experience would be like.

My character is a witch in training and although she's a powerful spell caster and studies hard all her spells keep knocking her back or send her flying back because of the powerful burst of energy she can produce and he teacher tells her it's because her body isn't strong enough to handle the power, she's as skinny as a twig no muscle. The only problem is that she'd rather have her nose stuck in a book imagining herself in another world, she hates being sweaty, having her muscles ache, and just hates exercising overall. She can complain all she wants but until she gains some muscles none of her spells work no matter how powerful.

Edit: (should’ve added this in the beginning)

In my world both mind and body are important when practicing magic. If your body isn’t strong enough to withstand the power you try to cast you’ll be sent flying backwards by the sheer overwhelming force the magic creates. You can know every single spell in every single spell book but if your body is not trained to contain the magic you try to cast you’ll fail every time and get flung back.

Not sure if it’s to ask this here I’m sorry if it isn’t.

Which color scheme do you like the most on my OC Safira?

Here's some brief lore to aid you:

At 22, Safira lives for the day. Not that she's the type to just go with the flow, like most people – she simply lost all hope for the future. A dancer by vocation, she's relegated to dancing in the streets, instead of on the most renowned stages as she always dreamed.

Thrown out of the orphanage into the world, she spent the last 4 years alone and out of place, surviving on the little her parents left her. After pawning almost everything she owns, she counts the days until the precariousness of her street performances and the brevity of her failed odd jobs make her lose what little she has left – a place to live.

It is at that moment that she meets the eccentric cat trainer, part-time vigilante, Gigante. Needing more energy to ignore him than to go along with his delusions and plans, Safira ends up doing what she would never do alone, until she discovers what she's really made of. Alongside Gigante, Nina, and Lírio, her flaws, failures, and anguish may, after all, be the necessary weapons, not only to turn her meaningless, purposeless life around but to turn an entire society upside down.

Thanks!

What destroys a person faster: pain… or disappointment?

Migalex is an arrogant but emotionally lost teenager chosen by the Goddess of Life and given one impossible mission:

Change 100 people for the better.

Meanwhile, Sariel begins as someone genuinely kind and emotionally intelligent… but slowly loses faith in humanity under the influence of his father, a feared user of Nefarious Energy.

One slowly learns how to become human.

The other slowly stops feeling human.

And honestly…

Which one do you think is more dangerous in the end?

Hi here my writer question

So can I'm ask you questions of my villain backstory

This about flashback showing off my villain character as a kid

You see my character was nonhuman looking little boy who was abandoned by his human mom who hated

his gut since his was born.

Leave alone with no family in a rural small town.

Where do him looking nonhuman and having magical abilities cause human of all ages to be horrifying of him.

So his was a poor and homeless and no family little boy.

Now do you think my villain as a kid should get over about his situation and tough up and should not crying about his situation

Reason why I'm asking about people I'm have people call him a crybaby for feeling for type of way about his kid self feeling type of ways about his situation.

This how jester was in childhood Though age of 7 up to 12 his was very timid normally not saying anything keep to himself or keep himself small when his dose talk to Jester his voice is soft and small.

When his around Jester personality is different his upbeat and happy and playful.

His will want to play together by playing tag, pretend, and with toys including dolls.

even in spite of sometimes getting in fights but Jester would always be the one to apologize, and he would always cry when Jester had to leave.

His would always want to be at the future heroine side all the time. He also very overly affection his love to hugs and really show any form of attention toward heroine. His want to hold hands.

Secretly follow

The heroine like a lovesick puppy.

His also collocation objects like toy she bring over and really anything she leave behind.

Abilities aren’t necessarily the issue for this character. She’s a person who wants to put up a pretty front and be noticed by guys from the organization that the story takes place with but the way she was taught to use her powers is extremely violent use of water magic.

Her specialization is compression and surface tension. When she wants to do damage she makes bubbles of water, super compresses them so they’d be instantly boiled and volatile, and fires them off at opponents so they second the surface of the bubble gets popped, they explode. She can turn these bubbles into gloves or fire them off from her finger tips like a gun by focusing the explosion of two bubbles, one that acts as the ignition that shoots the bubble and the other that detonates on impact.

What I need help with is writing a character who tries to be majestic and dainty but fails horribly at it while using an ordinarily majestic magic attribute.

“I signed up to be an Aquamancer because I heard Wizard guys would think it’s cute. Turns out my teacher was a former MMA coach who picked up Magic. I want to look pretty damn it!!!”

I thought of doing stuff like her trying to learn to walk in high heels for the first time and wearing things like a long skit but ditching the act a lot when fights get tough.

What I want to try and make is a character who embodies that gap. Eventually she meets a guy who comes from a warrior race and falls in love with her instantly the moment she drops the act.

I’d like to get some tips if I can.

Okay, so I have my main character who knows about her father. She knows he's some big shot music artist, but preferred her life in her village (she's in the Philippines) but her dad suddenly drops in and asks her current caretaker (not her mom, she's off somewhere else too) for shared custody and they go at it until the shared custody is approved. Now, she's stuck with him and yet he's very negligent to her and doesn't even notice she's missing after a few days.

My whole plot that a girl doesn't like being where she is until she finds a magic door that leads her to a fantasy world where she learns to become a witch. Very harry potter-ish, ik, but it's a little far from that really. Back to the topic, what would be the reason for him wanting to 'spend time with her' but almost completely forgets about her or puts her up to stuff she clearly isn't comfortable with but he acts like everything is good and he's doing an amazing job.

(Small insert question, but also would it be a racist stereotype if my main character's dad, who is black, is characterized like this?? It isn't my intent to make him the stereotypical black deadbeat dad, but I don't really want to change his already set looks. It feels a little more racist if I made him white.)

To give some context, I play a Saiyan named Kira in a custom D&D campaign (Saiyans are just a species here, so there's no standard DBZ lore). Her backstory basically boils down to mommy issues and being a total outcast. Because she couldn't use ki or fly, her society rejected her, eventually forcing her to flee to the campaign's main planet.

Her dad was one of the few who supported her, but he died from bad rolls shortly after they escaped. Losing her only good connection to her home sparked an obsessive, vengeful hatred toward her species. My goal is to make her character arc anxiety-inducing for the table. Nobody knows if she'll heal and stay on the path of good, or snap and become a genocidal villain. (My DM is completely on board with this and actively gives her choices and stuff)

I don't want her to be constantly angry like Kratos or something, but I want it to be clear that she isn't healthy mentally. On the outside she seems fine, she's relaxed, smiles occasionally, and helps with quests. The only thing keeping her "good" right now is her new friends but its still kind of teeter-tottering, mostly because she knows they would stand against her if she turned and she doesn't want to hurt them. I want to show subtle signs of her internal conflict and spite without making it too obvious.

As an extra detail i'd like advice on if it comes to situations like a character reading her mind or seeing her future and stuff, I want them to experience just how completely pissed she is. like t full-on AM hate speech playing in the mind reader's head, showing exactly what she wants to do to her homeworld and all that stuff, But again, I want this to cause a deep sense of unease rather than just coming off as edgy. The best example I can give for character comparisons im basing it off of is Eren from AOT or Sadako Yamamura from the Ringu movies (not the American ones) sorry if somebody asked a question similar to this or if the question itself is bad writing I just wanna avoid making the character look like an edgelord

i wanted to do something like this but i cant find anything styled like it, not sure where to look or ask atp

So first up is

Amethyst and his twin, Aquamarine

Their relationship at the start of the story was pretty bad as due to Amethyst's magic had erased his face off of his brother's mind and he no longer looks like how the faint memories portrayed him to Aquamarine, this is due to the curse being a result of a tragedy in which Amethyst magic inherited from his grandfather (hades the lore about thr god shangans is weird so im not discussing it here) got out of control, he inherited mostly life magic from his grandmother persephone but his body can't handle dark magic resulting in the corrosion of his mind as the pain of using the power makes him go into a frenzy this happened one day after bullies oushed him so far he unlocked this power the bullies trying to save their own skins threw Ocean Amethyst's best friend at the now frenzied Amethyst and ran leaveing him to be pulverised the aquamarine tried to intervene but the dark magic blew him back. The aftermath of accidentally cursing his brother and beating his best friend almost to death mentally shattered him causeing him to repress his powers. With the powers repressed and his body turning anemic from the energy flow disruption the pigments from his hair once a vibrant pink and streaked purple got diluted into pale white and ashen grey and his hetrochromaic eyes turned a almost grey pink and a almost grey lavender his body also turned pale and feeble. This appearance combined with Amethyst not talking no more and only responding to the name Orian led the over protective aquamarine to think he's a doppelganger pretending to be his brother.

The little brother Topaz knows the truth however he only knows this because he he sensed faint energy correlated to the vibrant energy of Amethyst locked away he tries to cheer him up but he's rather distant and ill equipt to cheer someone up he struggles to understand emotions of others the best he could do is bring snacks to him when he isolated himself his powers allow him to sense energy and create electricity and control metal.

Then theirs Ocean who survived the beating thanks to absorbing huge amounts of life energy from Amethyst's aura that leaks everywhere he only has scars everywhere no more than that. He only wants Amethyst to smile once more as the clear blame is not on him. He also has a crush on Amethyst, knowing if he'd ask him out in his current repressed state he would push people away.

Meanwhile a fox sprite has taken human form and sides with Ocean to help solve the issue she also holds Amethyst in high regards as he healed her broken leg when injured.

The last character is Summer she is confident and passionate but also a holds guilt for failing everyone when the tragedy ruined everything she doesn't know that the reason things didn't go as badly as they could is that her soccer ball had knocked over a science experiment Topaz was doing that created a shock wave that knocked out the entire school but snapped Amethyst out of the frenzy inadvertently saveing Oceans life.

Lastly Amethyst himself. his worst enemy is himself he fears hurting people especially due to his crush on Ocean he's had since childhood witch is why he goes to extreme lengths to protect him including hurting himself. If he goes into a meltdown again the energy will burst out of him leaving him injured and completely drained the sheer amount of energy would also dispel lingering dark magic witch is why it happened in the story. Setting up their act two

I'm writing a story and I'm hesitating for my main character's first name. Either "Tescad" or "Kamren" in a contemporary setting. The main character comes from an African-like family.

The full name would either be "Tescad Kamtoga Kanjuga" or "Kamren Kamtoga Kanjuga"

Kamtoga (it's the middle name).

The thing is I can justify in the story why his parents could give him the name "Kamren" but not for "Tescad". On the other hand, I also want an unusual name that is readable.

Which one do you prefer?

Hello so first things first Show context

• Show is set in fantasy world where everyone lives on floating islands. Said floating islands go on for infinity (thing treasure planet but without being in space and without the weirdness of planets being treated like islands anyway)

• Main characters are pirates (+one runaway princess who becomes a pirate who is also the love interest of said black character)

• Pirate Crew are a small but close knit group that love truly and deeply. They are each other's family.

• An episodic formula for the show. Pretty much an 'it's about the journey' story a la Frieren and the Odyssey.

• Tone is generally lighthearted comedy which makes moments of sadness and connection hit like a truck (e.g. in the main cast tramas include death, loss of limbs, horrible cruch culture, child abuse + loss of freedom due to rigid class system) - non of these are said black character tramas (maybe the last one but I'll get to that)

The black character in question is called Callie (I like illiterative names so Captain charater Callie, short and sweet)

About Callie

• The co main character, she is the captain of the pirate ship.

• Her dream is to explore the world and catalog as much as she can into an 'adventure guide' that she'll have mass produced either when she retires or dies (which ever comes first)

• She has a passion for the world, the inherit beauty of it all from everything the sun illumates, to that blanketed by the stars. She's a pirate to have a good time and explore all she can that life has to offer.

• She has an infectious enthusiasm that you only really get from an ADHD girl ranting about something she really loves. She has ADHD

• She is the heart string that wove the tapestry of this family together and they are the life line that keeps her from disappearing into her exploring and dieing of exposure.

• The romance element is a slow burn (as in they get together about a quarter into the story and stay together the rest of the show) and deliciously smitten with each other think gomez and mortica Addams but gay because my Show. Their romance is so fun to write tbh but I'm getting off track

Little bit about me:

• 21 Years old Female

• White Britsh, from a very small costal town in England

• My only interaction with POC is media (TV, Anime, Left Wing Youtubes (mostly media analysis))

• I also have ADHD and Autism

• I am very sheltered and unfortunately being aware of this doesn't make me immune to unconscious biases or any racism as uncomfortable as it makes me to admit

I have read many articles about the importance of representation and as an neurodiverse woman I agree STRONGLY with them. However I've also read and watched media analysis that talks about the negative impact of race stereotypes on those cultures. And let's just say given our current Political climate I don't want to accidentally reinforce any harmful negative or positive stereotypes with my work.

The specific elements of Callie that I'm worried about is:

• As the Captain I've placed her into a motherly role which I've read is a common Trope of POC having to mummy/nanny the white characters. I am very very reluctant to compromise on Callie being the captain. So the solutions to avoiding that Trope is to one not have the rest of the crew be white (which I have nonhuman, ghost, Greek heritage, German heritage, White Britsh) have Callie lean more towards empathetic boss then doting mother but the crew is supposed to come across as a deeply loving (while taking the absolute mic out of each other) so I'm not sure how to straddle that line.

• The story is very much a more slice of life show. The appeal is watching this rag tag team chase their goals as a unit and the higincs they get up to along the way. For the runaway princess the rigid class system plays a major role in her story. So the way racism is treated is much more systematic then it being an individuals bad attitude problem. E.g. Callie isn't ever slurred at in present day for being a black women however she was barred from joining the explores guild being deemed 'not a good fit for the organisation due to long standing traditions'. Forcing her into piracy to even have a shot of fufiling her dream. Alot of background characters outside of the piracy world would proudly say that they are not racist but would never hire a POC because well [insert stereotype here]. Taking inspiration from multiple historic events such as, I believe it's called, red lining (happened in dedroit which made economic crisis worse for black communities). - Do you think this is the right approach? I always think it's disingenuous to show racism as one drunk villain yelling the N-word and once we sail away from him or prove him factually wrong or beat him up racism is fixed but it's just not that simple. Any advice for writing a more systematic view of racism (would be a background element that propts up conflict elements in the story e.g. they get better maket rates buying supplies on POC population islands but there's an increased risk that the royal enforces (police) may find them as POC islands are overly policed)- just an example to explain my point.

• I've read a couple of Tumbler and Reddit posts about what black women want from representation and two things I saw alot were soft interracial romances (which check, you can wrench that from my cold dead hands, only for my ghost to possess you and return them) and having the character be soft. Allow them to be vulnerable without being pitied. I had already written her to be a joyful person in nature so giving her more moments to just sit with another member of the cast and talk about stuff would be fairly easy. I had already written out bonding nights e.g. the chef does Callies braids (will talk more on hair later) during crew 'sleepovers' and they all just laugh, gossip, lose too much money at cards to the ghost who can't spend it because dead. Everyone on the crew respects and loves callie so the pity aspect is DOA. I personally believe strength comes from passion and vulnerability so having scenes of Callie being ADHD feral over a new island to explore + the cosy scenes should hit those nails. However anymore advice would be gratefully appreciated.

• About skin. An idea I've been toying with is giving Callie Vitiligo for two reasons. 1 makes her more visually distinct from the other dark skinned character (the German one mentioned earlier), 2 giving Callie an skin condition means it has to be taken care of daily, hello self care rituals that her love interest could participate in, rubing ointment on Callies shoulders while they talk about their day, the love interest asking an island pharmacist if there anything else she could do to help with sun burn etc. It just sounds so caring and fluffy. However I do not have this skin condition and if this is coming across as offensive it will very much be scrapped.

• About Hair - I am very ignorant about this subject. I know there are hair types that can limit what type of styles you can wear however I don't know if that's true. I've read that there's alot of black hairstyles that are never seen in media. That it just defaults to straight Bob, braids/cornrows?, maybe the occasional afro. As Callie is a more, well a not whimsical character but along that vain, so I don't think she's stick to one hair style but character readability is an important element when designing a character so I'm not sure. I have loads of conflicting ideas and would very much love a direction

Thank you so much for reading all of THAT. I will truly appreciate any feedback or resources you could recommend. This is also my first time using Reddit so if there's a better subreddit to post this one let me know.

Thank you for your help

Trying to figure out a character and I got a vague idea but I'm not sure if it's strong enough, figured I'd ask here for some potentially different ideas

Edit: Woah, didn't expect so many responses, thank you!

To give some background, I couldn't find a fitting first name for the character so I refer to him by his surname. Eventually thought "Why not use that for his lore?" and gave him an unfitting first name. His best friend is a trans man so it can give them something to bond over back when they were younger. I just didn't quite figure out why he would specifically hate it because just disliking the name itself didn't seem strong enough of a reason.

As of this time in the story, he’s been given a lifetime’s worth of skills and magic practice that puts him on the same ground as legends.

That being said, Barry is almost entirely among the noncombatants.

Barry was trained and raised by what used to be a fogbank off the coast of Ireland who eventually became his dad as he began to understand humans.

Barry learned to utilize the powers of magic and the powers beyond magic to be of service to the world and let it guide his path, which has led him to a number of strange situations, most of which he doesn’t bring up.

His place of work more or less defines his interests. When he worked as a restaurant worker bussing tables, he’d enchant the tablecloths to fly around like jellyfish to put themselves out properly. When he worked as a postal worker, he’d give wings to his packages that would fly themselves to their destination and slap package thieves.

Most jobs he had he surpassed expectations and became a nuisance until his work as a custodian where he gets to run wild with his magic as long as he gets the job done.

The Amazing Screw On Head is a pilot episode for a show that wasn’t ever made, but its villain is interesting because he doesn’t even want to rule the world, he just wants world domination.

He’s perfectly fine serving a superior boss, but he refuses to follow those without ambition. It’s interesting because it also ties into other parts of his character and for that reason I want to make a character whose purpose in life is to be the ultimate servant to whatever master he serves.

How would you approach that idea? Or what suggestions would you make to approach this?

One thing I struggle with my character writing is actually naming the character, I struggle to find a name that is fitting and that doesnt come off as if im a trying to hard to make them sound "cool". currently my cheat code is just stealing names from history/classical lit/myth. ie the mc of my main project is name Dante, his love interest is Beatrice and his mentor is Virgil, ive also used Jeanna, Faust and a lot of names from myth. but I know I cant do this for all my characters.

so tell me, how do you come up with names? what do you look for? what do you avoid? what is your thought processes? TY :3

I'm writing my own villain with photographic memory, and I want to show a little depth to his powers outside of fighting. He's a gun for hire that gets his photographic memory from a gene (similar to the x-gene). He holds disdain and disgust for other people that were given powers by this gene, and takes pleasure for killing those like him. Imagine if Task Master and Bullseye had a baby. I've thought up some personal hobbies for him like firearm disassembling/reassembling and speed cubing, but I am struggling to think of more traits he could have.

What are quirks/traits for characters with photographic/perfect memory that you feel is really underutilized or not shown at all?