I have three categories of ocs rattling around in the warehouse:

1) The completely original characters who aren't based on anyone else I've played. These are the majority, and are usually tailored to site specific lore, a response to a want ad, and/or use a fc that I haven't had the opportunity to play before.

2) The characters based on loose archetypes. I may recycle a name, fc, and some general personality traits, but for all intents and purposes I consider them different characters. This is usually because the previous site they were on died before I could get very far in their development and I wanted to port the same character concept to the next site I joined.

3) This highkey main character energy absolute rat bastard who kicked his way into my head last year and Will. Not. Leave. Pretty sure this is the longest that I've been fixated on a single oc, ever. He's traveled to three sites so far with the third being a more-or-less canon continuation of the first (lore shenanigans) and the second being closer to a category 2 in terms of the number of changes I made to his lore, but I still consider both versions of them to be the same person in the way that all the Spider-Men in Spider-Verse are the same person.

just between you and me but being pregnant sounds terrifying and I am not a brave person

so keep me in the loop about this fragile peace we're burning to the gr-- (I am dragged off stage by a large hook)

Being afab is suffering

Right?

You have no shortage of masc faces of all ages and body types but sometimes is2g it's nigh impossible to find a fem fc who looks unambiguously over the age of 30, regardless of the character's actual age

if you rule out exaggerated body proportions the pool shrinks even more

Finally checking psycho-pass off my "to watch" list

icb I got publicly called out in the rpc

If filling in the orientation field is required, all of my characters are aroace until proven otherwise

Also I have severe altaholism brought about by cute fcs but I'm getting better, I swear

So I don't fully understand why but my custom name color is not correctly showing in all parts of the site?

Screenshot attached for example


The yellow is the color I had before my current orange, but I wanted it changed because it was making my eyes bleed.

I also used to have this philosophy

The corollary I now use is "If I use an animanga fc from a source media I haven't personally watched/read/played, I should at least learn about their character so I don't accidentally end up writing a straight expy of the canon character"

1. I got MARRIED!

2. I bought a HOUSE!

3. I had a great birthday party.

4. I managed to complete a legacy board game campaign without my group falling apart due to scheduling issues.

5. I learned that not only can I create OCs with highkey main character energy, but people... like them and respond positively to my plot pitches for them?!

1) I find anime characters more visually appealing than real people.

2) I find anime characters more visually distinctive than real people.

3) I don't follow real-life celebrities at all, and in tandem with 2), I find that I can remember what anime characters look like much better than real people, even if I know nothing else about their background. This makes it easier to pick a fc, or to remember what someone else's fc looks like when I'm not looking directly at their profile.

4) I find it weird and offputting to collect pictures of real people and turn them into my ocs.

On the site I staff, we have a freeform, an abilities section, and a plotter, but no "power levels" or mechanically relevant numbers.

It helps that the site is a fandom site based on a video game, so lore compliance is as easy as googling the wiki if something's unclear, and the general rubric I use when grading power level and special abilities is "how fair would it be for other people attempting to thread with this player?" Things we've rejected in the past include:
- the power level is unrealistic relative to the character's freeform (age, level of training, etc)
- the ability is not written clearly enough for other people to consistently understand what it does
- the ability is godmoding (i.e. mind control, perfect prediction, etc)
- the power level is high enough to make the average accepted character threading with them irrelevant in either a PvP or a PvE situation

as Aerie said, the emphasis is less on whose character can beat up whose and whether other people can participate in a compelling story with the character.