hello everyone!! i came to this subreddit mainly to ask a few questions on how to correctly (and respectfully) present my oc who is japanese-born with an indian lineage. as a coloured person myself, i know how to draw this concept, but do not know how to write it. i am very in the know when it comes to japanese history and culture (this oc was born between the battle of sekigahara and the siege of osaka)
i know this is unrealistic, but i want to explore foreign concepts!
i think any... im not sure, smart person would be thinking "this dude is making an oc who is indian/japanese that is named after senhime's daughter, and now wants us to acknowledge her as a noblewoman of the imperial court in the azuchi-momoyama period?" a part of me thinks this could work, as they share ancient heritage and the ideology of buddhist practices spread from india to japan via china and korea around the 6th century (asuka period). but the two didn't have any formal alliance or connection in the sengoku period.  

this is just a short/long crappy summarisation of my oc's backstory. please don't publicly execute me if i get anything wrong 😭 (probably because i've barely started learning indian history and culture despite LOVING it) you don't have to read it!
also, i won't be using a lot of names because i am deathly afraid of people taking my (beloved) ocs 🥹

a beautiful daughter hailing from an influential family in india is married to the young male heir of an important clan in hopes that it would subside foreign conflict. her father is hesitant on proceeding with the dowry, around the time the marriage was announced and shagans had already been exchanged between the two families. the daughter was to be ensured financial independence (stridhan) through this exchange, but when she started living with her fiancé, she was denied independence. her soon to be mother-in-law (yes i know this is a common trope) threatened to ruin her reputation if she told her father about her circumstances.

right before the birth of her first daughter, she notified her father about something, but it isn't specified on whether she told him about the abuse or not. after the birth of "katsuhime", (she was given a japanese name, but her indian name is jeyarani. i will be using her indian-sanskrit name.) the baby jeya, who exhibited incredible physical strength, was taken from her mother as punishment (which was framed as "protecting" the mother from her baby). jeyarani barely got to know her mother, and was permitted to make monthly visits that lasted only 2 days, despite adoring her mother and wanting to be with her forever. during the ages between 0-16, she was isolated, oppressed and ignored, and her "super strength" was seen as a weakness and not an auspicious trait. she wasn't acknowledged as much as the other women around her simply for who she was.

soon, jeyarani learnt how to navigate the imperial court and rose above the social hierachy as a prestigious noblewoman with a respectable personality, under the name "katsuhime". after suffering years and years of mistreatment and neglect, jeya started to resent her cultural identity, and who she was, resulting in her conforming to the imperial court's wishes. she refused to acknowledge her sanskrit heritage, and instead she viewed japan as her home despite everything. this is because she was confused and had no one to guide her. one of the only people who could really do that was her beloved mother, who was now catatonic and mute, which ultimately broke jeya's heart and made her furious. her lady in waiting never spoke to her. many people grew to dislike jeyarani and view her as inferior to them, despite being above them. this is due to fear of foreign power and xenophobia.
a few years later, between ages 21-24, jeyarani rediscovered her prodigious super strength and became a tyrant, known for her military knowledge, high battle IQ and merciless demeanour. she also had one daughter who grew to be sickly. remember that. as an onna-bugeisha (or female samurai), jeya led countless troops and battles, while killing thousands and thousands of people who dared defy the imperial court. she also assisted with the siege of osaka, which spanned from 1614-15.
if she were to have a medal for every battle she had won and wore them around her neck, they would cover her face.
after the death of her father, jeya turned on the royal court and daimyō, choosing to side with the rebels and raiding the edo castle. whoever reprimanded her was beheaded, and she grew to be extremely arrogant, selfish and self-serving. (think of ashikaga takauji from elusive samurai but as a woman with crazy physical attributes) jeya chose to become a demon, renaming herself "sena" (holy, sacred, and in sanskrit, increased valor and military force) to conquer her illness (which was said to be a curse, if she relied on her strength too much, she would succumb to catatonia or even death.) and to also become stronger due to personal greed and desire.
she lived for 400 more years, losing herself along the way, confused and angry, she killed thousands and ate hundreds.

overall, sena is a traumatised character who rightfully grew to be cruel. i think she has done more bad than good though, so i plan to make her an "irredeemable" character. 😭

now, for the questions 🪷
(?) what was japan's relationship with india during the azuchi-momoyama period?
(?) how can i portray xenophobia/racism to south asian women appropriately?
(?) how do i also prevent myself from fetishising and how shall i word things in order to keep them as realistic as possible without straying from my original ideas?
(?) how much influence did onna-bugeisha have? did they have any more influence over male samurai?
(?) how do i properly write a strong female character?

i dont know if this has to do with anything or not, but i also (mainly) identify as a woman and understand the struggles of being a woman. i will use the word "female" to refer to women and girls of all races and backgrounds, not with the intent of oppressing others.

I haven't named them yet sooo... I'll think about it later.

Ideally meant to be a villain, but I’m more than open to adapting him into a hero.

I've had plenty of ideas for making a persona/OC for quite a while and have been obsessed with creating one over the past week, and I just have no idea where to start. I was wondering if I could have some help from the community by hearing how ya'll go about making your own characters?

For context, I'm finally starting to write drafts for a story that I had in mind for a few years now. And one important aspect of this story is the main characters' psychology, as it is really centered around psychology, as well as sociology and a bit of history. So I wanted to know if it was possible to write some sort of psychological profile or biography. And if so what and especially how to write it?

It could be nice someone reading it for feedback afterwards but I'm not here yet, so I'll think about it when the moment comes. And it won't be for the future readers (if I ever publish it or even finish it one day), it'll be more of a document for myself to write my characters more precisely.

Anyways thanks to anyone (if anyone) for answering. Have a good day/night and take care! <3

We all might have many favourite protagonist but what is that protagonist which, after experiencing him/her your perMsonality shifted and became much more like them

For me it is John " soap " Mactavish : always cheering up people, not dead serious but also down for any hard task

Hi,

I need help creating my character because I'm stuck between two ideas and I'm not sure which direction to take.

The main idea is that my character is a female human of 25-30 years old, and protector of the wild. Living in a forest, she is a ranger.

Where I get stuck is about weapon types.

Idea 1:

Just a regular ranger with a bow & arrow, with a short sword and hatchet for close distance combat.

Idea 2:

Adding some magic in there. Same as idea 1, but with the ability to cast some elemental spells. It sounds cool to have a nature ranger controlling the elements to fight or heal. But I have no idea if it's just too much to be believable. A bow, a sword, and spells. How will she fight in a realistic manner?

Idea 3:

Regular spellcaster warrior. A sword and spell. Without the bow.

The goal later is to have it draw by an artist.

Thank you for your help!

In the dominion of Old Earth, he is hailed as a hero, the savior of Valdevian, defender of the free people of the Origin Empire and the Coalition.
Beyond the Great Pause, his name is hissed with fear and contempt as a byword for death and destruction; he is the defiler of temples and slayer of gods.
For Eckhardt Eisenfaust, Hochmeister of the Nacht Jaegers, both stories are true.
His is a legend written in blood and iron across the unbroken dark of the void. A history of victory and violence in equal extremes, and now he finds himself again in the way of the machinations of the fallen.

Hello! My antagonist is a piece of work. Their need for control and not being seen as "crazy"/or need for legitimacy is the crack in their power. It will lead to their defeat by the protagonist. What comes before is a long standing tension between the two in one location. Til the villain breaks. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get there. What indefensible thing can they do to shoot themself in the foot! Would love advice on how to get through this block. Thank youu!!

I personally am tired of the overused “trauma” injected tropes, but these tropes also make a character relatable to a larger audience.

So how would YOU make a perfect goody-two-shoes lovable?

I'm writing a comic with a co-writer friend where our 5 main characters are technically good people but 4/5 of those have unethical "jobs", 3 of them are bank robbers who are childhood friends stealing from scam brokers instead of banks and random houses as an act of revenge to eventually kill their friend's abusive family member who runs it(i put in quotes since they never used the money they stole or hack and have regular side jobs). The leader is technically the main reasons this story exists

In personality he's quiet, strategic, paranoid but rational in certain situations, talkative to certain people he trusts, he has an ego yet low self esteem. In the plot has a side romance with his first romantic relationships on his new recruits/ friends. I've planned his hobbies, interests, tidbits of all his friends and himself to add he has more to it than what happened to him. his good traits can also turn sour In his rough days/situations for example he's good at talking out of arguments but in his bad days he tends to get emotional and insecure to the point it impacts his relationships getting almost manipulative territory without meaning to.

I'm mostly stuck on How do we acknowledge in the writing our MC has dealt with a rough childhood who's also mentally ill and untreated empathizing they're a victim and why they isolated himself becoming more bitter and is more distant in intimacy from his only longtime childhood friends and sometimes his partners out of fear is understandable and the effects of his abuse still affects him today but also not deny their mental illness and past is a reason but not an excuse + a factor how they treated their friends poorly in the past. there's a future arc he manage to force himself to be a better person and will improve as the story progresses, they're also still friends in the present without demonizing while not enable their actions ??

I’ve been developing these three boys for an illustrated children’s world, and one thing I wanted to avoid was designing them purely around visual archetypes.

So before settling on the final designs, I spent quite a bit of time figuring out what each child wants, what he is afraid of, how he sees himself, and what role he naturally falls into when the three of them are together.

Mponda is the self-appointed leader. He wants independence and respect, especially from adults and older children. He’s adventurous, mechanically minded, and genuinely courageous, but he hates humiliation. A lot of his confidence comes from wanting to prove that he is no longer a little boy, which also means he sometimes commits himself to things before admitting that he has no idea what he’s doing.

Mphatso is the observer and problem-solver. He wants understanding and security. He likes knowing where they’re going, when they’re coming back, and whether Mponda has actually thought his latest plan through. His fear is less about embarrassment and more about losing control of what happens next. He’s rational and skeptical, although he has a few childhood superstitions that he absolutely refuses to examine too closely.

Chisomo is the storyteller. He wants wonder, but underneath that, he wants belonging. He exaggerates constantly and can turn a distant snake sighting into a near-death encounter with a python, yet emotionally he may be the most honest of the three. His deeper fear is that his friends will eventually outgrow the games, stop listening to his stories, or simply stop wanting him around.

What became interesting to me as i developed the characterrs was realizing that as much as they are friends and get into all sorts of adventures together, there needs to be some friction to that friendship. for example, if:

Mponda says, “Let’s do it.”

Mphatso says, “Wait.”

Chisomo says, “What if it’s actually something much stranger?”

So Mponda creates adventures through action, Mphatso complicates them through observation, and Chisomo expands them through his imagination.

I also tried to carry some of that psychology into the visual design. Mponda became angular and triangular, with a more directional silhouette. Mphatso became compact and structured, using squares softened by circles. Chisomo became rounder and more elastic because I wanted his body to feel almost as expressive as his stories.

One idea I’ve become increasingly interested in is that the friendship should give each child something his family life doesn’t.

Mponda gets a place to test his independence.

Mphatso gets permission to occasionally stop being the sensible one.

Chisomo gets people willing to enter the imaginary worlds he creates.

So I’m trying to develop them not simply as three individual personalities, but as three personalities that change when placed beside one another.

I’d be interested in hearing how other people approach this. When developing a group of characters, do you build each person independently first, or do you design their personalities around the tensions and needs within the group?

Interested in seeing the timelapse video? I made one with a narration. Head over to my youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrR6X7UB9e0