LF Character Creation Help

[bastion]

UPDATE: Added more detail to the profile rather than just copy-pasting the vague one required for the group.

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So I've recently created a wholesome sunshine bean (well, actually it's an AU of my wholesome sunshine bean that's been around for years), but I'm having a problem. There's not really much else to her story beyond being a ray of sunshine in everyone's lives. I want her to grow and develop over the course of the rp I plan to use her in, so I could really use some help fleshing her out.

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HERE COMES THE SUN

art created with this picrew
Sunshine Demigirl 25​

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Sunshine strives to live up to her name, maintaining a joyful attitude no matter how hard the work or difficult the struggle. She's constantly seeking ways to bring a little joy to those around her, whether that be by having a friendly conversation, giving assistance with their work, or even hiding gifts for them to discover. She's the type to get overwhelmed by her emotions easily and break out into tears, whether it be in joy over some kindness shown to her, or sadness over some unkindness she's witnessed. However, the one emotion no one in the settlement has seen her express so far is anger. No matter how cruel a person might be, she just can't seem to get angry. Instead, she's overwhelmed with sorrow and confusion for the situation.

Sunshine seems to be inherently incapable of acting unkind to others. She's completely baffled by the mere thought of causing someone sadness. Sadness feels so terrible, why would you want to inflict that on someone?

Motivations: To spread happiness and help the community.
Passions: Supporting others, art, self-expression.
Conflicts: Willing to put her own happiness and safety at risk for the sake of others. Suppresses the emotions she feels would cause problems for others, until she can't hold it in anymore.
Flaws: Sees the good in others even when they haven't shown any, takes everything everyone says as the truth.
Redeeming Qualities: Unwaveringly kind, determination never falters, always willing to put the effort in to understand someone else.
Other Notes: Autistic
Potential Character Development: Developing into a strong community leader. Learning to express her all her emotions in a healthy way.

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For context, here is the rp I plan to use her in: Multiple Settings - ꧁⊹𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝙳𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙳𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜⊹꧂A Peaceful Post-Apocalyptic Harvest Moon-inspired RP (Discord Run)
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The main thing I need help with is figuring out her motivations and goals beyond making others happy. She very much is the type of character that gets fulfillment out of spreading happiness, but it feels shallow to just leave her at that.

I need some motivations that can create conflict and struggle, as well as a way for her to grow as a person. Any suggestions appreciated!

 

[nerdy tangents]

So here is the thing, the only kind of people who are perpetually happy have a mental disorder. That just isn’t possible in a real human being.

People have bad days, they have selfish moments, they have people they just plain don’t like. She’s more like an aspirational kitten poster then a real person precisely because she has no real downside to her personality.

The fact that she cries when someone is nice to her and she ALSO seems to have a compulsive need to be happy to everyone around her?

That tells me she comes from a background where kindness was the abberation not the norm. So I’m not saying she had to be cartoon tragic where she lived in a cupboard or anything.

But maybe she grew up with distant parents and showing emotion in general (but specifically kindness or happiness) were discouraged. And so now any sign of happiness from other people overwhelms and flusters her. But because it means so much to her personally she tries to replicate that for other people.

I think just making the happiness something she struggles with. Like yeah she doesn’t know how to handle people being nice to her so she cries or gets embarrassed.

Maybe she’s not good at vocalizing happiness or kindness so that why she resorts to doing kind acts.

And again she could have days where being a happy ray of sunshine is just hard. Days where maybe she doesn’t necessarily want to hide a gift for her friends but she thinks she has to because that’s the only way she knows how to connect with people.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Edit : So I used happiness when I meant kindness sorry. To clarify I think having her grow up in a strict household where being “happy” was just expected. So she was taught sort of “good girls are always happy, agreeable, whatever” and that just became her default manner of dealing with people.

So like she doesn’t know how to be angry or sad or even silly. Her only emotion is happy because that was the socially acceptable one growing up.

The kindness thing is perhaps tied to her parents being somewhat distant as well as Strict. So she likewise was taught like maybe a lot of shallow manners stuff but never allowed to do kind acts.

So hence why the kind acts mean so much more to her.

 

[bastion]

So here is the thing, the only kind of people who are perpetually happy have a mental disorder. That just isn’t possible in a real human being.

I mean, you're entirely right, although I don't think there's a mental disorder that would make someone genuinely happy all the time. I did forget to mention she's autistic though, which is why when she gets overwhelmed with happiness she'll cry. She feels her emotions very strongly, and they just kind of flood out.

On a related note, you're entirely right that there should be times where being happy is hard for her. It's something I intended but didn't properly express because the CS for the group was meant to be kept more vague. She entirely has a compulsion to keep an upbeat attitude no matter what she's feeling. She's conditioned herself to only show a smile even when she's hurting because she doesn't want to cause anyone else pain or burden them with negative feelings.

When she does express other emotions, it's usually sadness in the form of absolutely bawling because she just can't quite grasp why someone is acting cruelly or a situation is so unfair. She can't fathom being unkind to someone, even if they're unkind to her, to the point that when she sees it it can cause her to have a meltdown.

Anyway, I apologize if it feels like I'm just dismissing your input. I just realized I should give a clearer picture of her. I'm gonna edit my post when I'm feeling up to it, but hopefully this clears things up a little.

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Edit: Updated the original post.

 

[nerdy tangents]

So something to understand about happiness is it should not be the only emotion you can show. Inside Out was a good metaphor for the difference between toxic positivity and genuine happiness.

When I said a mental disorder I was thinking in terms of her being unable to express a full spectrum of human emotion. If the only emotion you can express is happiness that is detrimental to your overall mental health.

Because sometimes you need to be sad, or angry, or afraid, or whatever. Cheerful people are not just “Happy happy happy” and nothing else. They do absolutely show other emotions, it’s just those emotions are usually given a positive spin.

 

[nerdy tangents]

So for instance a happy person might say be in a situation where they are disgusted. Like idk they have to deal with a dirty diaper.

They’re not just gonna be “oh I’m happy lalala this is great, everything is great.”

They might be “Oh eww baby made a stinky. Blech.” But still find a way to laugh about it later cuz their disgusted faces made the baby laugh as they changed the diaper.

That’s kinda what I meant when I said more emotional range would be nice. Like maybe in the beginning she truly can’t handle expressing an emotion other then happiness. So the disgust (ewww this diaper is nasty and it smells) is all internal monologuing. While outwardly she’s trying to pull funny faces and make the baby laugh.

So yeah she can - appear - happy from the outside but inside she is feeling differently

And her conflict can be a combination of unrealistic expectations (she thinks she has to be happy 24/7 and gets very hard on herself when that doesn’t pan out) and also her learning to sort of manage her emotions in healthy ways.

Like if she is crying because she only knows two modes for expressing emotion “unrelenting cheerfulness” and “frustrated/overwhelmed” tears then have her try to work through that.

even if she doesn’t succeed I think just having the narrative realize that her being compulsively happy or overwhelmed is not actually for her mental health.

As I feel like you actually do have a really complex character as long as you treat her being happy as an obstacle rather then just a (for lack of a better word) shallow character trait.

not saying she’s shallow, I think you actually have a good foundation. You just need to sort of treat being happy as a flaw instead of a virtue and build from that.

 

[bastion]

And her conflict can be a combination of unrealistic expectations (she thinks she has to be happy 24/7 and gets very hard on herself when that doesn’t pan out) and also her learning to sort of manage her emotions in healthy ways.

Okay, I've actually had time to properly process and understand your suggestion. I think you're entirely right that a way for her to grow is to learn to express her emotions more, as well as her emotional expression being a big conflict for her.

 

[nerdy tangents]

Yeah sorry probably didn’t get that across very well, sometimes I have a bad habit of assuming people can read my mind.

My phone autocorrecting or deleting words doesn’t help.

 

[bastion]

I'm still open to further feedback, if anyone else has suggestions. I'm especially looking for other motivations for her.