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[nightslain]

Sin, I got a ?.. How do you know if a muse is right for you? I am trying to find a muse, but having some trouble. I feel like so many characters only sORt of work well with me? I feel like I'm better suited for villains, but not many of them are actually pretty soft deep down (like, super soft) and I feel like that's what I'm naturally inclined to play. So I have a hard time vibing with a muse really strongly. Might have to make an OC, hm. If you know some good soft villains, tell me, haha..

In my experience, the best way to learn is always to do. Finding a muse well suited to you and your style is never an exact, predictable science and largely depends upon pure experimentation and playing by ear; speaking from experience, I’ve had a total of 24 independent muses on tumblr, and of them all, only 11 actually remain to the present day. I was pretty sure of my dedication to all of them at the point of their inception, but actually writing with them proved a different story. Some I just couldn’t gel with or thoroughly enjoy, some just were too difficult or awkward to apply to a roleplay setting and others simply proved to be a lot duller to write than I imagined them. I know I am meant for a muse when writing them is as easy as it is enjoyable--it comes to me naturally and I am not constantly stressing over how to emulate their speech, their body language, their thoughts, their beliefs--so on and so forth. I find the more I’m constantly struggling with my portrayal, the less that muse is suited to me and my particular writing style. If I can’t understand or entirely grasp a character as an author, regardless of how much I like them, I tend to get frustrated or flat-out bored very quickly. Leon is my magnum opus in the sense I have never been this consistently excited and happy to play a muse before him, nor spent nearly as much time constantly developing him down to the ridiculously tiny details and relishing in doing so. In short, he just came easily to me! I connect with him, his story and his themes very closely and feel like I have a good, comfortable grasp on who he is as a character, at least in my mind’s eye (even if I’m sure there are others that still would obviously not agree with my characterisation or parts thereof, which is a given.)

Some of my old muses though? I couldn’t even figure out how to consistently write their dialogue after months of working with them and felt generally uncomfortable trying to actually get my portrayal written down. The process was always tedious, difficult and unsatisfying to slog through. I just couldn’t do it! And in some cases, I just didn’t actually like the muse enough to really put the time in to make it work when the muse didn’t come as naturally as some do. Some characters you just can’t connect with on any real level when you try to work with them on grounds as personal as breathing life into them as a writer. Its a labour of love, after all! And some muses we just don’t love that much even if the idea of them is tantalising. It’s often surprising how little you like some muses you thought you loved once you’re the one trying to emulate their personality!

So my first piece of more general advice would be the following...

Experiment with any muses you’ve been fancying regardless of whether you think they align with your current ‘vibe--you never know what you will gel with until you try it proper--but don’t officially bring those muses to tumblr etc. until you’ve had some solid practice with them first. I’ve wasted so much time making blogs and aesthetics for muses that didn’t even last a month for any number of reasons, and to me personally, it was generally a pretty embarrassing affair to constantly hype up friends and followers to get excited for a new muse, only to permanently abandon them shortly thereafter when I didn’t like writing them as much as I thought I would and wanted out. Tumblr also enforces a lot of pressure by creating an environment where you can end up feeling obligated to write, obligated to constantly create content, obligated to attract and engage a lot of followers and this all ends up being conducive to burn-out; plus in some cases, can contribute to wanting to just abandon your blog when it starts being a chore instead of a fun hobby--something I don’t think is good for anyone, let alone newer roleplayers in the current climate of the tumblr RPC.

I’d advise you start by roleplaying over discord with your friends or in servers with the muse you’re experimenting with to get a feel for their character and how well they suit your writing style, or if you even enjoy them in the first place. I also heavily endorse ooc discussion and plotting with others alongside actual IC interactions. This is a great, low-pressure environment for developing a taste for a muse, fleshing them out, learning your unique style of portraying them and naturally, if you actually do want to commit to that muse after all. Much of the development and decision making behind my newer muses all began and is still on-going on discord, which helps keep me in check and keep my muses fresh and exciting to write for!

As for your dilemma with the type of muses you’re looking to adopt, I feel like your struggle is coming from the fact you specifically want ‘soft villains’ which are in remarkably short supply simply because...well, villains are typically meant to be villainous, not soft. I very rarely see characters embodying both traits at once because the two generally don’t mix, and people trying to play blatantly evil characters while simultaneously making them soft and kind (even if not overtly) tends to just come across as woobifying your bad guy, depending on the context of the character. Conflicted villains do exist, angsty villains do exist, complex, multi-faceted villains do exist, but the defining trait of an antagonist remains the same; they are bad people purposefully doing bad things. Softness doesn’t often come into the equation for straight-laced villains unless they are a) a reluctant antagonist or b) a repentant antagonist. But in the latter case especially, they cease to really be a villain at the point they decide not to do villainous things and repent/pay for their wrongdoings. 

In my opinion, what you need is a compromise between the two in which you can have the best of both worlds, and one of the better ways to explore both dynamics in one entity is to explore characters that were not always inherently evil or villainous but are pushed there by extreme circumstances and become almost distinct entities from their old selves. Characters that have a past of kindness and philanthropy that are twisted into villains by circumstance, environment or life experiences, or vice versa, will allow you to have two distinct verses where you can explore either side of the coin in peace, at any given point in their path to villainy (or from it) that you desire. A good example that might be pertinent to you is Hector from the CV game Curse of Darkness. He begins as a villain serving under Dracula with his abilities as a Devil Forgemaster, only to grow reluctant in his duties and eventually abandons Dracula and the castle altogether, deciding it would be best if Dracula’s reign of terror was ended. He also forsakes his abilities as a Forgemaster and retreats into living a mundane human life until the events of Curse of Darkness, where he actually assumes the role of a Hero. A really good textbook example of a complex, conflicted villain who ends up repenting for his involvement in the bigger antagonist’s doings and becoming a good guy. Highly recommend you check out his game and read the accompanying manga if you haven’t already, as he might be just what you’re looking for.

Another option is to choose a character that has an alter-ego of sorts. In my case, I also run a duo-muse blog consisting of two vampiric muses. The first is Ayin, a God-figure who is cruel, ruthless, barbaric and, for lack of a better word, purely evil. The second is Carvel, a “clone” of Ayin who retains all of the former’s godly powers, but is trying to save the world from his true self and from other vampires Ayin created that prey on humans. He is a good man that wants to protect others and would put his own life on the line to do it. Naturally, this gives me a lot of room to play with both sides of the coin whenever I happen to feel like it, and my muse tends to fluctuate heavily on the daily between whether I want to write for a nastier muse or a gentler one.

Last of all? Maybe choose an antihero. A character that’s kind of a dick on the surface but isn’t actually a textbook villain, and will come through to do the right thing when push comes to shove. These are in much greater abundance in the media since they’re a pretty standard archetype and I think you won’t have much trouble singling out a muse that fits that description. Also gives a lot of wiggle-room to play with where characterisation is concerned!  (I’ve been watching a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh with my best friend and girlfriend lately and tbh Seto Kaiba is a prime example of a anti-hero in that he is so blatant about his distaste for the protagonists but always comes through to save their GD lives every single time.)

It’s a little beyond me to suggest characters for you to consider adopting as a muse since, naturally, I have no idea who you are as a person or what characters you already enjoy except maybe those from the Castlevania franchise (hence my one and only recommendation thus far of Hector.) But the best thing for you to do is just experiment with handfuls of muses from any franchise you enjoy, practice them with your friends, and eventually you’ll strike gold with the one you know is for you. Just keep searching and just keep trying.