Character Theory Recurring themes in your characters?

DemetrioMachete

Messiah of the New Night
You ever make a slew of dudes for stories and realize they got a few similarities?

It may be on a broad scale, but I did realize I like making characters with either a mental handicap of sorts, or characters that are in some way socially challenged.

Heinrich Klaus, my polite, medical malpracticing plague doctor has a slew of flaws. He suffers a maddening form of post traumatic stress disorder, as well as some maybe-there, maybe-not schizophrenia (I've been told I play it well.)

Lenelia Vaterian, my trap of an Elven bard, is highly insecure about his feminine appearance due to being an outlier of his kind.

Grigori Chernov, a Russian that I use indiscriminately through modern and sci-fi, is a Mute that tries to find inventive ways to communicate.

What do your characters share?
 
Determination. Violence. Ambition. Skeletons. These were the qualities selected to make the perfect little PC's. But Pope Windsock accidentally added a fifth ingredient: Gummy bears! Thus was born 80% of windsock's characters!
 
In the past year or so, only one of my characters has been from a happy family. And I use the term loosely. Dysfunctional families and/or tragic backstories are my thing at this point. One had very little to do with his (now-dead) father and is on edge with his mother and brother, who refuse to tell him who his actual father is. Another is at odds with his vindictive, all-powerful father, although the rest of his family's fine. Great, even. One cut contact entirely. Another loved and was loved by both of her parents, before they were slaughtered before her very eyes. And yet another has none to speak of.
Many of my characters are wrestling with the question of "Am I even a decent person?"
Impostor syndrome and proving oneself are also a recurrent theme in my characters-- those, I admit, are the bits of myself that seep into my characters.
And then there are those characters who know what they want and are unapologetic about their goals and methods. More rare, but among my favorites.
 
Some of my characters suffer from insanity and show signs of sociopathy or psychopathy. That's about it.

Normally I add some story as to why they're like that besides being mad for the sake of being mad.
 
I try to vary my characters. But a common theme is grizzled, sarcastic asshole, with a alcohol problem.

Or a Russian survivalist.
 
My last few fandom OCs have been androgynous-looking folks with kind of punky fashion senses. I notice I tend to write rather vulgar characters too, not necessarily in the innuendo sense but rather they often quite enjoy their f-bombs and creative insults.

I play a lot of canon characters from various fandoms as well and the latest trend of mine there seems to be "immortals with a very strong personal aesthetic", eheh.
 
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My last few fandom OCs have been androgynous-looking folks with kind of punky fashion senses. I notice I tend to write rather vulgar characters too, not necessarily in the innuendo sense but rather they often quite enjoy their f-bombs and creative insults.

I play a lot of canon characters from various fandoms as well and the latest trend of mine there seems to be "immortals with a very strong personal aesthetic", eheh.

Reminds me of my old characters... Honestly, I don't know why I came up with them.
 
The name oak Hawkhill, is a throwback to my old cringy characters when I used the word "your" as if it were a contraction. And when I censored out the word damn. I still use the name today as a little inside joke to anyone who remembers me from like... Early 2016. Nobody really does though, there seemed to be a great migration from Rpn and all my old friends seem to have left the site.
 
As far as personality goes, my characters tend to be one of these things:
  • A kudere type (Seemingly emotionless and avoids people)
  • Anti-social due to personal reasons
  • The old, cliche smart and wise being (Not anymore, but just a little now)
  • Someone who either can't or rarely ever speaks
Other than that and characters that have been through some horrible trauma or tragedy, that's mainly it.
 
My two go tos
- a sense of normality/mediocrity in a world that celebrates the extra-ordinary. Someone whom the more outrageous characters can play off but still keeps the roleplay somewhat grounded in reality

- a general sense of good humor and fun about life and the world in general. the happy go lucky individual just derping about happy to be alive without any real concrete motivations.
 
All.
(ALL)
All of them are related to the mafia in some way, shape, or form.
Well, that's not true.
There has been ONE who was not.
Other than that, every single one.
 
Chaotic neutral, that's been a common alignment in most of my characters. Apathy toward violent revolutionaries and no sympathy for the law abiding armies who'd implement martial law in the name of security. I don't rp enough anymore to have a wide variety of recurring characters,but this is my usual baseline. Some swing toward being more lawful but at the end of the day my default is a neutral through and through.
 
All of my characters have a little piece of me in them somehow, but the prevailing theme seems to be that all of them have some sort of kindness in them, or the more popular trust issue due to something that happened in their past.

My more prominent example is my girl Skylie Dyer, who's had an interesting past full of parents' divorce, living on the streets, and a relationship gone awry. Though she doesn't trust men all that much, she's very protective of people who are naturally kind, and despite putting up a cold front, she's actually not that mean.
 
I'm trying to branch out because I'm still having flashbacks to the time I roleplayed exclusively as sarcastic edgelords, so my characters now are pretty diverse. There is a common denominator, though, and that's that they're all socially dysfunctional in one way or another.

I have a character who is a healer, the sweetest girl ever who would sacrifice her happiness for others in a heartbeat. The kicker? She keeps putting her foot in her mouth and insulting everyone in her vicinity without meaning to. Once she told someone "good that we amputated that arm, makes you look thinner" in a genuine attempt to cheer that person up.

Another character of mine is incredibly sheltered and thus ignorant of many social conventions. She's also arrogant, too, which doesn't exactly help.

Then there's a character who is sort of a subversion on the "sarcastic yet lovable" archetype. She has the "too cool for you" attitude and she manages to be quite charming sometimes, but underneath it all, she's actually pretty cold and insensitive and while not explicitly a bad person, she is very difficult to get along with on some meaningful level.

The one character of mine who is successful socially is a lying backstabber addicted to power who is also deep in denial of her own vulnerable side.

I could go on and on, but you probably see the pattern now.
 
I only realised the other day that none of my characters seem to have fathers/father figures in their lives. I guess it's not hard to tell that I'm really not close with my dad.
 

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