OC Maker Questionnaire

Here's another fun little (long) questionnaire that I'd like to see do the rounds! This time it's about OCs and all the meta processes of making OCs—great! Admittedly I'm a little disconnected with GoH compared to my prime, so I'm sure I've forgotten some things, but this still sounded like a lot of fun. We'll see what I can remember. Original by Tofutush.

1. A little self-introduction!: Hey ho hee, it is me, Callie!
2. How long have you been making OCs?: My first 'proper' OC was in 2016, so about 10 years now. Though, I don't really make new OCs often—outside of GoH, I only really have 2 character concepts for anything floating around. The rest get generated as bit-pieces and side characters out of neccessity when working on GoH.
3. Who was your first OC ever? (If you don't remember, answer for the earliest that you do remember.) Are they still in use? Did they go through any iterations?: My first EVER that I can remember was a little kangaroo guy in a fluffy magenta outfit named Greeter. He was, expectedly, the doorman/greeter to a magical realm inhabited by mage spirits who embodied the elements. I made him when I was 10 or so, haha. It was very anime. I drew him a little at the time but never used him outside of that, he is dead and obscure lore now.

For GoH, Zachary was the first as a foil to Kino in a Kino no Tabi fanfic. He's been reworked since then to, like, not be a fan character, but really I just moved him to the left.
4. Who is your favorite OC, currently?: This is an evil question. They're all my babies.
5. Who is your newest OC as of right now?: God, who is the most recent GoH? I think it might be Arsene. The Archons and their foils were outlined pretty early, as was Miquir, but I can't quite remember where Arsene's concept even came from. It might've been after I had the 'embody Kenoma to nuke Miquir' idea and he arose out of the circumstance of that.

Outside of GoH, it's a scrapped D&D character named Lyall Palmer. He's a slightly naive and idealistic barbarian who was raised in an isolated village of violent werewolves. He's the runt of the pack because he's mysteriously immune to lycanthropy, but he's been sent out by the village elder to retrieve a mysterious artefact. That's the hook anyway, I think he's interesting but didn't develop his voice much before the psychosis.
6. How many OCs do you have? If you have multiple, then do you have blatant favoritism?: 17 main OCs. Like maybe 50 more if you count bit characters and randoms. There is a bit of tiering in my favourites, like Zach and Cam and Arsene and Camille and (ugh) Mephi are all kinda 'more favourite' than the others, and Phoenix/Aquila/Raum/Reyl/Lisbet are on a strata above the other others, but I do like them all. After years of hating Renard, lol.
7. Do you create OCs with other people, or is it mostly solitary?: Nooooo, that wouldn't go well. I'm really stingy and controlling with creative stuff, so I think a collaborative OC would either not get too much input from me (and this would bother me) or I'd end up taking it over (and bother the other person), so it's for the best that I just do it alone.
8. Do you create your OCs for specific story(s)? What are the genre and common themes featured in your story(s)?: Yeah, my OCs are for Gates of Heaven. It's a science fantasy, so you have magic and monsters and witches alongside dieselpunk and futuristic settings, but the main themes are around death, rebirth, immortality, the afterlife, world mechanics and concepts, that kind of thing.
9. Are your OCs from a fandom?: Zach, Swift, Cam, Verti, and Miquir started as Kino no Tabi FCs, but were divorced from it when I made GoH. It wasn't too hard because Kino is a pretty open setting anyway.
10. Do your OCs live in their own universe(s)? How different is their world from ours? (If you have fandom OCs you can still answer this with the world of the franchise!): Yeah, they live in a universe called Aurholm in a setting called Gates of Heaven. It's basically similar to the real world because it's literally a delusional schizophrenic's copy-paste recreation of the real world, but it has magic and gods and people turn into monsters/demons when they die. Death kind of really sucks in Aurholm, that's the biggest difference I think. Oh and the water's all poison.
11. If you got isekai'ed into your OCs' universe (if there are multiple, pick some of the most notable), how long would you survive?: GOD, Aurholm is NOT a universe I want to be in. I guess it depends where you wind up. Like in a civilised area in Kitiven or Miulu you'd be fine, in Asphodel or Palida you could run into ghoul or water poisoning, and Ordanz is kind of hell already.
12. Do most your OCs belong to a (set of) species?: They're mostly humans, but Cam and Verti are an original species called High Terrans. They're basically humans but pointier and with some psychological differences and reality warping powers; they exist to look after humans. It's not a huge difference but I feel like they're really compelling actually, they're fun to think about.
13. Do you draw pictures of your OCs? If so, what kind of pictures do you draw?: Yeah, usually just mindless doodles of whoever standing at 3/4 in a weird pose. It's been ages since I've done like, real illustration.
14. Do you enjoy drawing new reference sheets?: No, and I'm really happy to have reference sheets that are basically final that I never need to update again.
15. Do you write about your OCs? If so, what sort of text do you write?: Yes, this is my main OC content. It's usually stories, or 'narratives'—detailed drafts of very long stories encompassing the character's main character arc. The stories outside of narratives are snapshots or bits that get alluded to but not sufficiently detailed in the narrative writeup. I did spend a few years writing a shitton of RP replies on Toyhouse back in 2017-2019, too.
16. Aside from drawing and writing, is there anything else you're doing for your OCs? Like… making a website, perhaps?: Hahaha, well, there is the website, but I've also done a voiceclaims video for them which was fun, and playlists. I'm a little bummed about losing the spark to do playlists (and losing my planned playlists) because that was really fun, maybe I should try getting back into that.
17. What's your general process in making new OCs?: I start with an idea, a story role, or a concept for the OC, and build them up around that. Aquila for example started as 'older Asphodel brother; heir to the throne; foil to Phoenix' and so his personality arose from needing something that could contrast Phoenix, and his plot came about by way of slotting him in to Phoenix's narrative. The Archons on the other hand came from a list of keywords, like Celibates (Trivia) or Severance (Raum) that I wanted to theme the setting's gods around.
18. Relatedly, which comes first for you, the OC or the story setting?: They kind of go together, but I think the setting edges out the OCs just a little. Like I remember the idea of soulsmithing came about specifically so Phoenix could use it, as well as Ordanz and Asphodel being enemies and Ordanz being kind of a shitty country, also for Phoenix's narrative for when he almost gets kidnapped there.
19. Relatedly, how do you name your OCs?: The bit characters get saddled with keysmashes and fart names like Greg and Bart. More important characters I actually put a lot of thought into name meanings and symbolism and shit; with the main 17 there was a lot of agonizing about 'but what does this MEAN' and 'does it sound GOOD' as well as a bias for flower names, just because.
20. Relatedly, do your OCs gain a life of their own during the creation process?: Oh god yeah. Before the meds fucked me up, they moved on their own and felt like real people.
21. Relatedly, do you focus more on the design of the OC, or their personality? Or is it an even blend, or something else?: The personality, but the personality informs a lot of the design and should be clearly reflected in it. I remember back in 2016 being frustrated because I was so excited with finishing Phoenix's narrative but I didn't have a design for him yet, so I couldn't draw him even though I really wanted to, haha.
22. Do you assign your OCs birthdays? Is their calendar different from ours?: No, they don't have birthdays because they have a different calendar and I never got around to making it. They do have zodiac signs though, which is kinda close.
23. Do you keep track of OC creation dates? Do you consider the creation date to be their birthdays?: No, I have no idea on the creation dates of any of them.
24. How do you handle OC ages? Do they age up with you, stay static, or grow within the universe?: They grow within the universe, but like half of them are immortal so they stay static at a specific age after a period of growing. Ren's narrative in particular follows him as he gets older a lot.
25. Are there any rules you set for yourself when making OCs? How often do you break these self-imposed rules?: Not really a 'rule' but I need my OCs to fit within the world and not break any of the established ideas of the setting, though they can introduce new ones or stretch them a bit. The latest stretch was Lisbet introducing lore about demons to the setting. I guess another soft rule is to use only natural hair, skin, and eye colours—I just like things feeling more grounded like that, for GoH at least.
26. What are things you enjoy the most in OCs?: That feeling where you're in a creative daze and story ideas and dialogue are just clicking together; that feeling of touching on some kind of deep idea through a really specific character doing some specific action in a specific scene; the infiniteness of how much entertainment and content you can get out of OCs when they're clicking.
27. Conversely, what are your pet peeves about OCs?: Ehhhhhhh........ choosing fucking colour palettes. Takes me forever.
28. What's the most common trope you fall into when making OCs and their stories? Do you even like these tropes?: Secret royalty/nobility and unwilling objects of cultist worship. I like these tropes, it's on purpose. One I do kinda by accident is that everyone's plans fucking mess up or fail, it's how I make like 50% of my plots. Kinda in line with secret nobility is how many characters are heads of state in one way or another. And of course dying and becoming a god.
29. Conversely, do you have any trope you like but doesn't get to use it much in your OCs?: They're my OCs so I stuff all the tropes I like into them already.
30. Tell me the weirdest and wackiest piece of out-of-context OC lore you have.: Poppy's boyfriend was raised in a family of chimpanzees. This is actually pretty emo but it's funny out of context.
31. Tell me the saddest and most tearjerking piece of OC lore you have, with context if needed.: There's a lot of fucked up stuff in GoH but I'm not sure about purely tearjerking... I think the 20 years Phoenix spent on his own in Sebilles before Raum came is pretty sad. Paranoid, isolated, 12 years old, house in disrepair, panic attacks on the daily, barely eating... yeah he really needed Raum. I also think the fact Zach would've been a poet if he didn't have aphasia is pretty sad. And Arsene pining for a flower from Camellia but never getting one is also pretty sad.
32. Tell me the scariest and freakiest piece of OC lore you have, with context if needed.: Hmmm.... it's kind of scary to think about what happens to Arsene if he doesn't rip Camellia out of Pleroma; he's just alive forever in this endless void of nothing. Some of the witches Mephi eats are pretty scary too, like the one who can magically distend orifices. Desiree's backstory is pretty fucked up and scary; she was sold off to demons and forced to compete against other girls in like fucked up sexual competitions or else get put under terrible geas. And Lisbet's time in Nix turning into a bug thing is pretty scary.
33. Tell me the sweetest and most wholesome piece of OC lore you have, with context if needed.: QUEE'LEE'LO BOB WHEN HAPPY. This makes me happy. Another pretty cute thing not outlined anywhere is that Phoenix eventually makes a Bandcamp and starts socialising with people again (through Raum) and it helps him stop being a lonely hardass.
34. Tell me one meta thing about your OC lore. Like scrapped / revamped stuff?: There's like a lot, every narrative and character went through a lot of revamps before reaching its current state. But maybe one interesting thing is that alongside myths and classical archetypes, the Archons were also given stereotypical internet/anime archetypes in their theming—like Renard is a chad, Mephi is the virgin wizard, Phoenix is the child prodigy, so on...
35. How do you think your OCs think of you? Are you their parent, their creation god, their suffering-bringer…: God, they'd hate me.
36. How much TRAUMA do you give your OCs!!: Mmmmm, yes.
37. Do you have a Mary Sue? Bonus points if they're your self-insert!: Yeah, all the Archons are kinda Sues because they're so powerful, but Cam especially is a Sue and Lisbet's internet archetype inspiration is 'Mary Sue'.
38. Do you have a self-insert then? What role(s) do they play?: Not a direct self insert or anything, but all the main characters have some degree of me in them.
39. What are your biggest influences when it comes to OC or worldbuilding? Could be media, other people's OCs, anything.: Ohh man I have a lot of influences in GoH... basically all the media I was into up to that point. The more obvious ones are Homestuck, Kino no Tabi, Re: Zero, gnosticism, mythology, and the Book of the New Sun... Re: Zero was especially present in the idea of overpowered Archon god-figures (witches/archbishops) and the premise of a flat world with 4 basic continents.
40. Are you happy with these influences, or would you like to break away more?: I'm happy with them, they're all blended together enough that it doesn't feel like I'm totally riffing on any one thing or another, and the end result is pretty clearly its own thing.
41. Do you try to break out of your comfort zone when coming up with new OCs and stories?: No not really, my comfort zone is where I have fun.
42. How do you organize / categorize your OCs, if at all?: I always order them in the same way, which is their chronological order on the in-universe timeline. This works because the plots of later characters build off the plots of earlier characters.
43. Do you have any advice you would like to give to new OC creators?: Try to have a clear concept, idea, or role for an OC that you can build/theme them around, that you can always return to if you start questioning your direction with the OC: 'does this fit in with prime idea X'?
44. What are some boundaries you think people should have regarding other people's OCs (or things to take notice of if you create together)?: Don't kin other's OCs.
45. How often do you think about your OCs, expressed as a percentage of your waking time?: God, before the psychosis it was like 90% of my brainspace, no exaggeration. Now it's more like 35% or 40%.
46. What impacts do you think your OCs had on your life?: They're what I put all my energy into for 7 years or so, so they're kind of a crystallisation of those years of my life. I definitely made some good friends through them, so they were worth it if just for that.
47. Do you want to become POPULAR? If you are already popular, what's the secret ingredient?? :eyes: :eyes:: Kinda... I get really flattered when I see people talk about my writing or OCs, so I want that, but I don't want to deal with the ramifications of what getting REALLY POPULAR means. I'm kinda content to just have a small circle who are really into it.
48. Are there any songs you think describe an OC or a story perfectly?: Yeah, I made some playlists for characters that were almost serendipitously fitting in some cases. Really happy with them. I'll just go through them for Cam and Verti or else I'll be here forever.

Cam:
Forgive Durden - Life is Looking Up: Cam in his years governing earth and being perfect before he became genocidal.
Emanuel and the Fear - Ariel and the River: Cam realising that High Terrans are kinda restricted and feared/exploited in the Union and being spiteful about it.
Einar Stray Orchestra - As Far As I'm Concerned: Cam being actively genocidal and trying to convince Verti to nuke outsiders, being in melancholy over High Terrans' position in universal politics and feeling like he has to do something to change it. I am supremely tickled that these anti-fascism songs are being given to FUCKING CAM.
The Reign of Kindo - The Man, The Wood & The Stone: Cam deciding to nuke everything after Verti gets exploited (and ending up on Kinesis).
Bjork - Army of Me: Cam on Kinesis impressing to nonhumans that he has basically no patience left for them looping humans into their bullshit; his general political attitude towards the wider universe over issues like Kinesis' leadership etc; being barely reined in from nuking everything.
Dirt Poor Robins - With Slander For A Blade: Cam really wanting to nuke everything and meditating on his position being restricted on Kinesis, persistent hostility and resentment for the nonhumans and frustration that he isn't acting on it.
Kishi Bashi - In Fantasia: A more subdued Cam after years on Kinesis getting meditative on the political corruption of the universe as a whole, and again feeling an impetus to do something (Innocence is no virtue in times of need) but being a bit smothered by dissociation.
Parenthetical Girls - Windmills of your Mind: Cam meeting Lisbet and making Miquir. The female vocalist is Lisbet.
Make A Rising - Peaceful Paths: Cam in the early days of Aurholm with Arsene being happy and blissful and creating the world and shit, before anything went wrong.
Everything Everything - Get to Heaven: Cam during the period where Arsene is restricting him and trying to monopolise him from humans, being insane and out of touch with how bad things are getting. Some echoes of his attitude toward the Archons too.
Arcade Fire - The Well and the Lighthouse: Dead Cam being more lucid and meditative on how he's wound up stuck in Aurholm and needs to fix things, while being kind of powerless to do so (and not admitting it).
Typhoon - Artificial Light: Resurrected Cam giving a retrospective on his life and the choices/mistakes he's made to the Archons before returning Aurholm and himself to Pleroma.

Verti:
3 - Alien Angel: An overall summation of Verti; Verti going from idealistic, innocent, and naive to cynical, jaded, and realistic.
Delays- This Town's Religion: Younger Verti acknowledging the corruption of universal politics and how it clashes against his worldview, and his feelings of guilt at becoming complicit to universal disharmony.
Bryan Scary - Venus Ambassador: Younger Verti being reamed through court for exploding Umestos and ascending to High Executor to save the 7 low terrans. Quintessential Verti song.
Super Furry Animals - Juxtaposed With U: Verti after becoming High Executor hating all other races but maintaining good (if spiteful) relations to not like, just flip his shit and murder everyone. Can also be him speaking to Cam.
Kiss Kiss - All They Draw: Verti being exploited to explode Cautenlla and a general statement on his mental state after being worn down by so much fucking politics.
Dark Star - Vertigo: Verti putting pressure on Cam and his consistent urges to bout him and get tortured by him, over and over. His mental state in trying to suppress Cam.
Agent Fresco - See Hell: Verti coming like a hair's breadth away from going 'fuck it' and just letting Cam kill everything. His exasperation with nonhumans coming to a peak.
Rishloo - Scissorlips: Verti's philosophy, mental state, and strength of will holding him together to still resist Cam after years of suppressing him.
In The Presence of Wolves - The Ape and the Cage: Verti and Cam both starting to FUCKING LOSE IT and GO INSANE with their stalemate, meditating on how worn down they've both become.
Closure In Moscow - The Church of the Technochrist: Verti going a little bit nuts and seeing hope for Lisbet and Camellia to solve all the universe's problems and bring about intergalactic transcendence/closeness with Pleroma; Verti putting his hope in Lisbet.
Thank You Scientist - Psychopomp: Verti getting blobbed into Pleroma after Camellia makes Miquir and splitting off from Aurholm, with some meditations on the nature of the universe. Farewell to Camellia.
Razia's Shadow - Toba the Tura: Not on his playlist because it didn't match the sound, but the quintessential 'Verti gets on Camellia's ass and condemns him for destroying the universe' song.
49. Might you have a paracosm? Look it up!: No, I think I was too old with GoH for it to really be a paracosm.
50. Finally, do you still recognize the word "OC" after seeing it so much?: Haha, well the detour into playlists refreshed it a bit. Yeah I still recognize it!!