#character st/udy? is that what this is called?

[beardedhandstoadshark]

Who was your first ever OC? Do you still “use” them? How have they evolved over time?

What story are you the proudest of? Why?

What are your favourite relationships between your OCs? (romantic or platonic!)

Hiii thanks for asking! This got super long so I‘m diving each one with a ——— so it’s easier to read!

Officially, my first oc was/is Tomato the tomato girl, whom I made as a 12y old for a jump n run game called "Tomato and the quest for Spaghetti“ in one of those "make your own game“ online thingies that give you a bunch of small game templates to edit. The plot was (iirc) either that the holy Spagetti was stolen or lost, or that there was no ketchup left for said spaghetti and she went out to find it. …don’t think too much about the implications of the latter one.

I still "use“ her the way I "use“ most ocs I’ve got; that is, making them in character creators and occasionally drawing them if I‘m bored, as cameos, or memes. So not actively.

Since she’s basically been "dormant“ since I was 15, only her looks changed, mostly!

Originally her hair was literally just a tomato, and the outfit was a sleeveless square dress in red with a green scarf (and isn’t that a familiar color palette?),

then it became a winter dress with sleeves,

then went back to the first one but the scarf was gone and tried to actually draw her a bit rounder,

gained a friend and the hair‘s become regular hair,

ran both looks parallel as seasonal outfits,

and then I was 15. Have been sitting on a potential "future“ look for an older version of her, as she was originally set at ~12y old like me at the time.

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Story as in character or proper story? For characters, Red‘s still the only one who both makes sense and doesn’t only feel like self-indulgence, so her :]

Actual story is…I’ve got a bunch of small "testing out how writing works“ WIP’s in the drafts (and I think 1 of them might even have been posted?) on my oc blog, but the only stories that actually ever saw the light of day were a bunch of crack fics about emojis me and my bff wrote in 6th grade. One person sent one part, and then the other one continued writing a bit from there. The greatest of them was the dramatic life and romance of the star and comet emoji.

Like. The Finale is one big fightscene on top of a volcano and also makes up half the story. The main villains are Manfred von Karma Ace Attorney and Günther Fire Emblem Fates. There’s a Yuri-on-Ice segment between the shit emoji and literal broccoli, which turns into the best romance in this entire thing and is to this day unironically the most invested I have ever been in a ship. A group of 7 only had 6 people in it and we didn’t notice until the very end. It was very bad, and very glorious.

I kid you not, if you want to have the best fun you could ever have with writing, grab yourself a friend or anyone online, and start writing an absolute crack fic with no holding back, it’ll be fun af

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Aside from the absolutely best romance ever created that’s alluded to up there, for my own guys- whatever the heck is (supposed to be) going on between Violet and Mage. It’s basically "I vibe with who you are but hate what you stand for“.

Or alternatively, the arranged marriage trope but the marriage is friendship and the arrangement is Red, and also it’s enemies to rivals

Because, in principle, Violet and Mage hate each other. Violets entire life has been dictated by duties and trying her damn hardest to get good enough with light magic to meet the expectations of her family because of her high magic potential, only to fall through, and basically spent her whole life stuck in a single room with barely any contact to others let alone anything genuine. Meanwhile there’s Mage who wields his dark magic with an ease like it’s a kids toy and no problem using it for petty things, no regard for the damage it could potentially cause, can do whatever the heck he wants and go everywhere, and worst, having all the freedom in the world yet CHOOSING to lie to everyone and himself, while she has been forced to follow a script that ends with her doom.

On the other hand, Mage looks at Violet and sees another pompous royal judging him based on status differences, whose family is leeching off his hard-earned bearings just because some legend says they’ve got special god sealing juice in their line, AND she has the absolute audacity to deliberately let the people who know her think she’s still missing or even dead, when his best friend went missing 5 years ago and he never found out what happened, how dare she make others go through that pain.

They also both know the other is lying to themself basically 24/7 and reaaaallly don’t like having that mirror in front of their faces.

On the other hand, they keep having things in common, and the fact annoys them both whenever it’s pointed out. They’re both unashamedly manipulative. Mage got no problem lying and backstabbing for his own gains, while Violet has no issue using manipulation and such if that’s the "most efficient way" to solve any given problem (even if it includes pretending you’re MIA). They also very much like to tag-team to mess with others in that regard. They both hate having to play an act personality-wise, but also understand that’s often the only way to gain the best outcome of any situation.

And they‘re both absolutely nerds. Loving history, knowledge, learning things and excitedly tell others fun facts, a fascination for magic (something Violet only begrudgingly admits) and are absolutely thrilled that there’s finally another person who not only wants to listen but also KNOWS what they’re talking about and can add to it with their own info, AND they both enjoy talking to the other in general.

Basically, they would NEVER even walk near each other a 1km radius if they both hadn’t been friends with Red, but if she was ever out of the equation afterwards, there‘s a good chance they’d actually hang out with each other at least for a while (It’d inevitably fall apart. But there’s also a chance they’d hang out again perhaps, probably by accidentally being forced to work together again)

Also somewhere along the line their designs started reflecting that whole "completely opposite sides but also the same things in common“ thing a bit and I still think that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever done lmao