#characters trait

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There's no denying that when we enter a fandom, we will see so many OCs. And even with a brief glance, there will be a lot of female OCs, especially when the media has more male characters we can simp on, because most of the creators are females as well. So, it's inevitable that we will see some OC getting paired with some canon characters.

Now, there's nothing wrong with making female OCs for fun, but that begs the question: Why do they get a bad reputation?

Before we go to answer this question, let's talk about Mary Sue.

Now, before we light up the fire, I know this is a pretty sensitive topic, but hear me out for a second. I know we usually throw this word to any female characters that we don't like, but let's look a little bit at this.

Let's ask a question: What's a Mary Sue?

Taking this from Overly Sarcastic Production, a Mary Sue is someone who takes all the spotlight from other characters and makes the universe's law bend to her favor, making the story boring. She can do no wrong, is very badass, and everyone adores her. And this is where the problem starts in stories with an OC that has the Mary Sue-feels. The story feels boring because we know that the OC will win in the end, get out unharmed, and everyone will still adore her. And that can be annoying.

But there's another problem: "I'm not making a Mary Sue! She's just a Strong Female Character!"

Now, I'm not saying that "Strong Female Character = Mary Sue", but there's a line between those two.

Let's ask another question: What's a Strong Female Character?

According to Wikipedia, a Strong Female Character is a stock character, the opposite of a damsel in distress. This character is often seen on our mainstream media. However, as we see, there's a lot of criticism about these characters. They're known to be strong physically, able to stand on their own, but often lacking in weakness. One thing we also often see is that they're better at doing most things than the men in their peers as if they're superior to them.

And I think this is the problem. The reason why both Mary Sue and Strong Female Characters are hated is because of how their character bend the male characters surrounding them. And what I mean in bend is reducing the male characters from their initial role. In both scenarios, the male characters either become the ones who are simping for the female OCs, reducing them into a one-dimensional cardboard box of a love interest, or making them into a butt-monkey to make the female OCs look more badass. Or to other female characters who are not their OCs. They're often turned into a mean girl who is always jealous of all the attention that the OCs get and always lose. In both scenarios, the female OCs are always being adored. If you don't adore them, you're a bad guy.

Another problem is, going back to the universe's law bend to the female OCs' favor, how the female OCs never seem to have a problem or weakness. This is not a simple reason as bullying, but more of a character flaw. many OCs are bullied as their background story, but they still have a strong face. And that's good. The only problem is that they never seem to have some sort of trouble or fear of talking with others. Like, do they ever be guarded and worry that they might get bullied again in a new environment? Like there are no consequences with anything in their life. Heck, sometimes their trauma doesn't even play an important factor in the relationship growth.

These are what I often found in fanfiction and look me in the eyes and tell me this is not annoying.

As I said earlier, it's okay to write for fun, but don't get mad when people don't like your OCs. When you publish something on the internet, people will see and people will have opinions. And some people are not very kind with their opinion.

So, how do we lessen that harsh opinion?

Well, so far, we have two problems. Let's try to work around these problems.

1. Don't lessen the other characters' role

You know who women often criticize how they don't like how women are portrayed as simple-minded, wealth-chasing harlots? Yeah, it feels like that when writers reduce all the characters into chums to make their OCs look better. Don't do that. If you want to make your OC earn the attention, you have to work for that. Speaking of...

2. The Struggles are Real

Many OCs never seems to get into trouble, even when they were the one who caused it in the first place. Giving your OCs some problems and allowing us reader to see how they struggle and solve said problems is fun, engaging, and give us more in-depth to the characters. But, don't make them solve it too quickly without any feelings. This also includes character flaws. I already said some things about the whole "they are shy at first but once you get to know them, they are more talkative" and "they're nice but very scary when angry". OCs, especially in a fanfiction, can be more than these two traits. I believe you can make more complex characters than these. You can have all these badass skills, but you have to earn them. Even the most expert still fails one day. Show them emotions, not just the one stoic looks.

Some Examples from What I've Watched:

Usually, I'll provide two examples, a male and female. However, since we're focusing on mostly female OCs, I'll be giving some females examples.

Bad Example: Rey 'Skywalker' - Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Here's the thing: I used to like Rey and I still have a soft spot for her. I don't loath her, but I don't love her. 

Many had been said about Rey. She came from a lonely desert planet, scavenging for money and waiting for her parents. Throughout the trilogy, we found that her parents are nobody, not like Luke and Leia who are children of Anakin and Padme. But it also turns out that she's the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. 

Now, when I first saw The Rise of Skywalker, I was really disappointed. This reveal ruins Rey's character for me. Now, we see the only reason why she was so strong with the Force, with being able to fight with a saber when before she attacked Finn with a staff (implying that's her fighting style), mind control, destroy a big ass rock, was because she was Palpatine's granddaughter. She never had proper training like Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Ezra Bridger, Ashoka Tano (who is also a woman), Kanan Jarrus, and many other Jedis before her, and yet she's the most powerful of them all. Even her little training with Luke was just a fun field trip and serve more as a reflective moment for Luke. She can fly the Millenium Falcon better than Han Solo. She never really have a dream of leaving Jakku and yet she joins the Resistance for...reason? Even her bonds with Finn and Poe have fewer emotions compared to The Force Awaken and both male characters’ role get reduces in the sequel. Everything seems to turns to make Rey the most badass jedi in the universe.

Good Example: Hera Syndulla - Star Wars Rebels

Another example from the Star Wars universe, Hera Syndulla is one of the protagonists of Star Wars Rebels. She's the Team Mom of the small group and later became a general of the rebellion. Compare to the other member of the team, Hera is the least combative, focusing more on being the pilot of their ship and communicating to the growing rebellion. She has dreamt of flying ever since she was little and she train for her skills. I admire Hera, mostly because I adore mother figures. She's the heart and brain that keep her Ghost Crew, but that doesn't stop her from prioritizing the rebellion first. Her bad relationship with her father doesn't stop her from succeeding her mission. When Kanan was captured, despite wanting to save him, she doesn't want to risk the Empire to notice their early rebellion. This doesn't mean that she's heartless, but she's thinking about the future of the galaxy. She doesn't depend on Kanan, but can stand on her own. She and Kanan are also a great duo and are clearly in love with each other and would often worry about each other.

Good Example: Gwen Stacy - The Amazing Spider-Man duology

Even though she's doomed to die, Gwen Stacy left a very large impact on these movies. Gwen is brilliant, smarter than Peter Parker, and is an intern at Oscorp even before graduating high school. She's kind, brave, and can be a little bit stubborn. 

What makes her so good is that, even though she doesn't have any superpower like her partner, that doesn't stop her from helping Peter in defeating the bad guys, making the two of them a great duo. Not only that, even with her status as a love interest, she has a life outside of Peter. She doesn't give up her study abroad in England, saying that her education is more important. I also want to mention how good the chemistry between Gwen and Peter (to an extent the dynamic between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield) is. You can tell that they are in love. This makes Gwen the best girl in the whole Spider-Man live-action movie, at least in my opinion.

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Hopefully, this might help all of us. I don’t hate female characters, however, I often see myself in various male characters instead. In the era of mainstream feminism, I often find myself not enjoying it. I can’t enjoy reading fan-fictions with female ocs who only appear and suddenly all the boys are droolling over them.

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Now, I'm going to start with a disclaimer: Harem and reverse-harem is not my favorite genre. In fact, romance is my least favorite genre for a couple of reasons:

One, I've never fallen in love before. At least, not that deep. Yes, I did have a puppy love crush when I was in middle school, but after that, it disappeared because that boy I was pining over was in a different class in high school.

Two, I'm not ready for love or marriage just yet. I was taught that dating is the first step in preparing yourself for marriage. That's why I've never dated before. Call this a traditional mindset, but this is what I was taught and it's hard to just jump away from everything your family and community had taught you for your entire life.

With that, you can see why I have some problem connecting with romance and (reverse) harem. From all the anime I've watched, I only know a couple of harem anime and most of them are trashy adaptations. I watch Disney movies as fantasy escapism, not because I want to fall in love and marry a prince. I read more found family fanfic than even the slowest burn I can find.

With that background, you can see that I might be biased in my judgment, but I'll try my best not to in explaining this.

Let's actually start from the definition of 'harem (genre)' according to Wikipedia:

A genre where a protagonist is surrounded by three or more androphilic (male, masculinity)/gynephilic (female, femininity) love interests or sexual partners.

In harem, the main focus is the protagonist's romantic relationship with their potential partners, similar to a dating sim. I know some of us have watched or played a dating sim game.

Now there are three things were going to focus on in this discussion: protagonist, potential partners, and romantic relationships. As we go down, I'll give you an example with a self-made OC.

-Protagonist-

Let's not try to deny this, guys. Sometimes, (reverse) harem protagonists suck. They're might be the most milquetoast white boy/girl you could ever see. A boring (reverse) harem protagonist might make you wish the comedic best friend or even the villainess is the main character instead. And that's something you don't want to have in a protagonist. You might argue that it'll make it easier to project yourself into the main character position. But do you really want to bring yourself down to a character who doesn't have a backbone?

This is most prominent in 'x reader' and 'Y/N' fanfic. You know you can't make a specific reader, thus you have to make them as generic as possible.

How do we work this out? To start, don't start with a 'HAREM protagonist', but make a 'harem PROTAGONIST'. This is the same as making a 'strong female CHARACTER' instead of a 'strong FEMALE character' (which I hope we can tackle this one day).

We need to make a protagonist first, whether they're likable or not. Do you want your protagonist to be an 'all-loving hero/heroine' or a 'jerk with a heart of gold'? What is their personality? What is their backstory? Everything you have learned about making a character, pour them out in making your (reverse) harem protagonist with their strength, weakness, and flaws.

Another thing we need to remind ourselves is that our protagonist has a personality outside the harem. The point of having a harem is that there's something that makes the love interests fall in love with your protagonist. And I can't stress this enough: being pretty/handsome is not a personality. If the love interests fall in love with your protagonist just because of their looks, that's not love. That's lust. We'll talk more about this in the next sections.

Now, let's make a (reverse) harem protagonist:

Yume Sakaki is a 16 years old girl from Tokyo, Japan who got hit by a truck and isekai-ed to a magical all-boys academy called Night Raven College. Before her death, Yume is an avid visual novel gamer who has no interest in romance with real-life boys. She prefers to daydream about her 2D husbando. She sees everything like a game, thinking of many potential perks when deciding on something, and compares stuff in her mental tier list. However, because of her lack of socializing, most people will see her as weird. She herself doesn't really know anything outside her game.

When she got isekai-ed, her personality gets carried over to the new world. But because this is a magical world, it'll make it harder for her. For one, she sucks in school because, you know, a magical school. But, she gains a small group circle of friends when she joins the board game club and got introduced to new games.

-Potential Partners-

Now, I'll keep this brief because we're talking in the realm of fanfiction, thus we already have thousands of characters we can push our (reverse) harem protagonist onto.

However, this is where our problem starts: OOC characters.

The biggest sin in 'x reader' and/or (reverse) harem fanfictions is making the canon characters (aka the potential partners) so out of characters to fill your protagonist harem. How many times you've seen a cold character become so overprotective after seeing the protagonist? How many times a villain is willing to drop their well-crafted evil plans to mary the protagonist? If this becomes too much, it'll be very annoying instead of cute. It'll make the canon characters (aka the potential partners) look like a brainless simp and make the protagonist (aka the 'reader', aka 'Y/N') such a mary-sue for being the center of the universe.

How do we work this out? For one: research. If the canon characters are not lovey-dovey, maybe don't make them like that. Always remember that canon characters have lives outside of the (reverse) harem protagonist and they are allowed to not think about the protagonist 24/7. They need to be able to stand on their own without the protagonist.

Now, let's give some love interests for our (reverse) harem protagonist:

Ace Trappola, a first-year student and Yume's classmate who sat beside her. Ace has a cheerful and mischievous personality, and often enjoys teasing others too. He doesn't have a problem speaking out his thoughts and could even come as far as insulting others.

Riddle Rosehearts, the chairman of the public morals committee. Riddle has a strong commitment and dedication to implementing the rules. He has no problem punishing rule-breakers. He is quite irritable and becomes very angry if someone admits that they are against the rules that he has set in place.

Azul Ashengrotto, a second-year and member of the Board Game Club. Upon first seeing Azul, he came off as 'friendly' and willing to 'help' others. He is also intelligent in arranging words and is also known to be sly. He is also seen to be skilled in every aspect.

Idia Shroud, a third-year, and leader of the Board Game Club. He doesn't like being in places with many people around and so he doesn't go outside very often. He doesn't talk much with his classmates or people from school, but things change when he talks about his hobby or things he likes.

-Romantic Relationship-

Now, in dating sims and visual novels, there's a thing called 'heart event' or 'character route'. Essentially, these are events that can progress the (reverse) harem protagonist and a certain love interest's relationship. Usually, we also get more insight into the love interest's past. At this point, we know what is the love interest main problem and how the protagonist is going to 'fix' it with the power of love and friendship.

This is where we can give a little leeway in canon characters being ooc. It'll only be acceptable if we see the progress. I'm going to reiterate what I just said: being pretty/handsome is not a personality. If the love interests fall in love with your protagonist just because of their looks, that's not love. That's lust. Good looks are not a steady base for a relationship. It can be an introduction, like because your senior is so good looking you want to know more about them instead of just pining from afar. But, if your protagonist's relationship is based on looks, that's... not encouraging, isn't it? If the canon characters are willing to change their entire personality just from seeing how beautiful/handsome the (reverse) harem protagonist is, can you really call it genuine?

How do we work this out? Give us progress. Show us the love interests falling in love with the (reverse) harem protagonist. If the only way to show that the love interest is in love is by kissing the rotagonist, is it really love? Show the reader the cute moments, the fallouts, the bickerings. No relationship is without their struggle, and not just in trivial things. Show us the characters changing that we can pinpoint when the love interest really had truly fallen in love.

And another thing. Remember when I say harem is about relationships? Not only do you have to pay attention to the '(reverse) harem protagonist x main love interest', you have to pay attention to the '(reverse) harem protagonist & other love interests' and 'love interests & love interests'. Is it really a harem if every love interest wants to kill each other for the protagonist's attention? DO they ever talk about anything outside their crush on the protagonist? How is everyone's relationship outside the harem? Is there any platonic relationship at all between the characters within the same age range as the protagonist?

The biggest pitfall I've seen is when there are other characters with the same gender as the (reverse) harem protagonist, the writer might either write them out or turn them into an asshole/bitch. Unless this is the character's original personality, changing their personality in other to make the (reverse) harem protagonist looks better is such a dick move. Please, don't.

Now, let's make a Heart Event:

Zero Heart Event: Yume joins the Board Game Club because she sees the recruitment pamphlet on the announcement board. There, she meets with Azul Ashengrotto, Idia Shroud, and Ortho Shroud (Idia's little brother). The first session is a game of snake and ladder. Somehow, Yume is so lucky that day that she wins the first game, earning a spot in the club.

First Heart Event: One day after a few weeks in school, Yume realizes that Idia looks more gloomy than usual. When she asks, Idia said that Ortho is sick. So, Yume decides to make some soup for Ortho. From here, Yume gets more respect from Idia because he can see how she's good with children.

Second Heart Event: Thee's going to be a new farm-simulator game released and Idia wants to buy it. He asks Yume to join him so that he doesn't feel too nervous in the crowd. Yume agrees and both of them go together to the game store. On the way back, both of them chat about the new features and characters. Here Idia feels more comfortable with Yume because of their same interest.

Final Heart Event: There's a Board Game Tournament and the club is joining in. When it's Idia's turn to fight, Yume is cheering for him, which gives a boost of morale. The Board Game Club wins the tournament in the end. At the end of the day, Yume and Idia spend their time at the Board Game Club room to hang their trophy. That's when Idia confesses his love because Yume is such a fun girl to hang around with. They kiss.

Some Good Examples from My Favorite Characters:

As I've said earlier, (reverse) harem is not my favorite genre, thus the good example I have is very limited.

Tomoya Okazaki - Clannad

Clannad has the biggest advantages of this anime being about family, but Tomoya is still a harem protagonist. Before the series even started, he has three girls fall for him (Kotomi, Kyou, and Ryou). At the start of the series, he meets with Nagisa, the main girl. And throughout the series, he gets Tomoyo.

Tomoya is a 'bad boy' but only really limited to just going to class very late, but still a kind boy. He's blunt and sarcastic. His father is neglectful after his mother's death. He's the first one to declare his love to Nagisa because she's a hard-working individual for her love in theater. When they have a baby and Nagisa died, Tomoya did slip into becoming like his father, but snapped back and got a second chance for a better life.

Katarina Claes - My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

The biggest selling point for this anime is the fact that this can be counted as a bisexual harem. All the male love interests (Geordo, Alan, Nicole, and Keith) and the supposed female rivals (Sophie, Mary, and Maria) are in love with the main character.

Katarina is very dense but lovable and has a big heart. She's actually a 17 years old otaku girl who died and got reincarnated as the main villainess in her favorite otome game who always ended up either dead or exiled. Katarina is too busy avoiding her doom flags that she doesn't even realize that her kind attitude makes all the characters in the game change for the better and even fall in love with her.

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Now, to close this, this is not me saying that you shouldn't make a (reverse) harem fanfic or it's wrong to make one. I'm saying that there's a lot of potential of making (reverse) harem. (Reverse) harem, 'x reader', 'Y/N' fics have a reputation of being not well-written. But that doesn't mean it's always like that. Maybe, just start with making a likable protagonist and a believable romance, and then maybe the story can be a pleasant surprise.

The final question: why does this matter? Isn't the point of making a (reverse) harem fanfic is for our self-indulgent? And you are right. In the end, we write fanfiction for fun. Don't stop writing just because I'm saying this. After all, I'm saying this as someone who doesn't enjoy (reverse) harem or romance fic, so my opinion is not the most valid.

All I can say is, good luck with your (reverse) harem protagonist and story~!

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This character trait is very common and, I dare to say, the basic of the most basic. I will try to divide this into two sections: the "nice" and the "scary when angry". However, both of them are connected.

"Nice" (and to an extend "good") is probably the easiest thing to describe a characteristic. 

You can pretty much group your OC in either 'nice' or 'not nice'. But this is where the problem started.

How far is the extend of "nice"?

I'm not saying this is a bad or judging way. Nice people are usually well-loved. However, when you're creating a character, there should be a measurement. How far is your OC's niceness? How should you know this? Now. This may sound harsh, but this trick kinda helps me.

You need to let your OC get hurt. What do I mean by that? Well...

When someone bumped into your OC, will they still be nice?

When someone smacks your OC's lunch tray and ruins their clothes, will they still be nice?

When your OC's parents smack them, will they still be nice?

When everyone else leaves your OC alone, will you still be nice?

Try to imagine the worst-case scenario happening to your OC and find out how far this niceness lasts. The answer is always yes or no, to make things simple, and give it a reason.

I'll try to give example. Let's just say, I have an OC named "Yume" and I'll answer this.

When someone bumped into your OC, will they still be nice? Yes. Yume will brush it off since nothing serious happened.

When someone smacks your OC's lunch tray and ruins their clothes, will they still be nice? No. She wouldn't like it. The school has a fashion policy. She can't go around with spaghetti sauce on her.

When your OC's parents smack them, will they still be nice? No. She will be angry. She will cry. She will walk away and lock herself in her room.

When everyone else leaves your OC alone, will you still be nice? Yes. If all who she knows leave her, she'll find a new person to talk to.

Now, you see how through answering these questions, you can make out more of Yume. You see, Yume is, at her core, is nice. From four questions, there's never a mention of her punching people, mocking others, or anything considered bad. From question 4, we can see that she has no problem socializing with others. But she doesn't like to get hurt, at least physically, from questions 2 and 3. What I'm trying to say is: expand the niceness. Nice is good, but it's pretty broad. Specify it to patience, kindness, or funny. Yume here is an easy-going girl, but afraid to get hurt

And speaking of "afraid to get hurt", this leads me to another point: give a restrain to your niceness. Give a realistic setback. "Afraid of getting hurt (physically)" is realistic, even before we know Yume's backstory, and this explains why she's nice assuming that "nice = not picking a fight with people". 

But now. What happened if you test their patience? What if they went too far?

This is where the trait "scary when angry" comes in.

Want my honest opinion? This is not a flaw.  In fact, this is considered a good trait.  In my honest opinion, this is weak. Do you want to know why? And this is the pitfall: We rarely or even never see the OC get angry.

A flaw is something that creates conflict for a character. A character that doesn't have any struggle is a boring character. When everything goes smooth for the character with nothing in their way to stop them, it'll be a boring story. Not just adventure-fantasy, even slice of life can be boring without conflict or at least a wacky hijinks.

When they say that "scary when angry" but you never show your OC being angry, is it really a flaw?

But, let's just say that this is not a character flaw, but it's just part of their personality. Again: how often do you see this? And repeating the previous question: how far does it take to make them angry to the point it's scary?

Let's bring back Yume for a second. We know that her setback is getting hurt. So, what if I tell you of when she's really angry, she'll be very destructive? One day, this mean girl dunked her head into the toilet and kicked her when she tried to breathe. And it became so painful that Yume finally lashed out. She punched the mean girl until she fell to the ground, straddled her, and kept punching her in the face until a tooth falls off.

Now, this is the most extreme version of "scary when angry" I know, but what I want to show you is this: Show the trigger of the anger. If people keep pushing your trigger, then you have a solid reason to fight back. Yelling, pushing, all those shifty stuff. We know the reason why Yume finally lashed out to the point of violence, it's because she gets physically hurt repeatedly. Find a trigger for your OC that will send them into a scary rage.

And hint that trigger often. In the short questioning, three questions show what can trigger Yume, and from that three questions, we can brace ourselves when Yume finally lets loose and beats the mean girl to the pulp. Readers don't want a sudden rage without being hinted at previously, it'll leave them in confusion.

Some Good Examples from My Favorite Characters:

Now, this is harder because, once again, most of the characters are nice. But I’ll be choosing two that came up in my mind. I’ll retell the progression from the “nice” to “scary when angry”.

Yuiko Kurugaya - Little Buster!

One of Little Buster! Refrain famous scene is in episode one where a girl kicked a door to piece to threaten the bullies. Yuiko Kurugaya is a nice girl, the big sister of the group, a top ten student of the school, loves cute things, loves her friends, and doesn’t take it lightly if someone hurts them.

We were introduced to Yuiko in Season 1 Episode 3 where she pranks Riki into sitting on an unstable wooden chair. She also skips class because she wants to and it doesn’t really affect her grade. Throughout the series, she’s shown to adore the other girls, whether from patting their heads or teasing them. It’s clear that she cares about them.

Season 1 Episode 19 is the first hint of Yuiko being ‘scary’. Her trigger is “someone bullying her friends”. You see, one of Yuiko’s friends is a foreign student named Kudryavka, but she can’t speak English. When three girls came in and told the gang that they were having a bet of whether Kudryavka will pass or not in the national exam, Yuiko glared at them. But it’s enough to scare them off. Meaning, we were hinted that an angry Yuiko is not something you want to mess with.

We never see the full extend of Yuiko’s anger until Season 2 Episode 1. The same three girls seem to have some grudge against Yuiko and it’s hinted that they will do something bad. Yuiko overheard them and whispered, “I can’t let that go”. Off-screen, she recorded the three girls talking about their crime after leaving some nails in Kudryavka bags and ripped the pages of Komari’s (another one of Yuiko’s friend) notebooks. She also threatened the bullies that she would broadcast the recording through the school radio as a payback. When one of the bullies smugly threatened to crush everyone close to Yuiko, that’s when Yuiko kicked the door.

Deuce Spade - Twisted Wonderland

Now we go with someone familiar since I’m from the Twisted-Wonderland fandom. Deuce spade is one of the four main characters, hailing from Heartslabyul, and is twisted from the Two of Spade. Deuce is more serious, despite not being the brightest of the bunch, hard-working, and has a strong moral understanding.

We were introduced to Deuce in Prologue 12 with the infamous cauldron scene. As early as this, we see Deuce as someone who would act without thinking first, which causes more harm. But, he’s also a determined student as he’s willing to stay back and face the blot monster despite being weak only to get the magic crystal that would convince the headmaster to let him stay in the school.

Prologue 16 is the first time we see a hint at Deuce’s bad boy side or his “scary” side. His trigger is “jerks who ruin something that will bring something good to him”, to put it lightly. Here, his soon-to-be best friend, Ace, decided to leave the magic crystal in a cave and let himself be expelled after knowing how dangerous the mission is. Deuce doesn’t take this lightly. Ace is about to ruin his chance to fix the chandelier with the magic crystal, to make things right for all of them. His harsh tone slip that moment, only to be held back when it was pointed out by Grim, one of Deuce’s soon-to-be friends.

We finally see the extend of Deuce’s bad boy side in Episode 1-14. This time, Deuce bumped into two students and cracked all of the eggs that he was going to use to make a tart. Instead of apologizing, the two students mocked Deuce about how he was freaking out over an egg. This is when Deuce started yelling and cracking his fist. It was clear that he didn’t take this lightly. Those eggs were going to be used to make a delicious tart, something that will help Ace get out of the trouble he caused.

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Hopefully, this might help you, dear reader and writer. Something as simple as “they’re nice but scary when they’re angry” can be expanded into a whole new level and opens millions of possibilities in character building and story progression.

Good luck with developing your OCs~!

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I've seen this character trait so many times, however, this is harder if it's just on the character sheet because we can’t see how these ‘shy’ characters act in the actual story. In your story, the readers can track the OCs’ interactions. If your "shy character" is shy in the first chapter, but bubbly in the next, we will be questioning that trait. Even I sometimes roll my eyes when I find this trait. This trait is commonly found in female OCs rather than males.

Why is it like this? Because this trait is common for female OCs but very rare on male OCs. Male characters tend to be more likable for the fans than female. There are more female fanfic writers, in turn, there are more female OCs to romance the canon male characters, even sometimes bash the canon female characters even turning them into a bitch.

This I dislike.

Not the trait, but how the writers portray it in their stories. This trait has big potential for character development, but most writer tends to solve this in just two chapters. Also, this is the only thing the character has which makes them boring. We can talk about some tips about making and building character at another time.

Also, something's I notice. When a female OCs has this, people might see them as "cute" or "boring". When a male OCs has this trait, people might see them as "wimpy", "gay", and "weak". Let's talk about the lack of soft/gentle/'weak' male OCs at another time.

Let's try to mend this trait first.

Here are some things you can do:

Do it slowly

Back from experience as once a shy kid, I had a really hard time talking to people, especially for the first time. 

It's okay for your character to have someone else to approach them for them to talk and only talk when they asked a question, never ask back. 

It's okay if your character fidgets or play with their hair or unable to look straight in the eyes. It's okay to have your character panic in their head whether they had said something offending or not and to have them sigh in relief when their partners say "It's okay."

Struggles and development

What if your character finds themselves in a problem that they can't solve on their own? Will they sit down and wait for someone to come? Or will they go to look for some help? If they choose the latter option, will they still be shy when they ask? Will they straight up ask someone else for help, blushing madly, fidgeting nonstop, and mumbling? Or will they leave a not, hoping that someone will read it and help them? 

These are some common things you can do. For a shy character, it would be hard for them to start a conversation, let alone ask for help. The struggle, while not as life-threatening like saving the world, is a very relatable struggle that most of us experienced. 

By showing your shy character coming up first to start a conversation, it's a big step in their development. Keep showing them struggles in voicing their opinions until one day they're able to stand up for a speech without flinching.

You can revert back 

As you get comfortable with your group, they invited a new person and suddenly you think: Ah, fuck. What should I do?!" It's okay to write it like this. Every day is a struggle for them to overcome, even if it's just a simple question like saying hello.

Some Good Examples from My Favorite Characters:

Rin Natsume - Little Buster!

Rin when she was a child, many adults talk down at her, making her confused, scared, and building this shy trait, except around her childhood gang. In her debut kick one of her childhood friend's ass when he uses her cats as a weapon, but the second time we see her, she's playing with her cats and avoiding her class cleaning duties because she's not close to anyone. When the gang started to collect members for the baseball club, Rin has trouble getting along with the other girls. However, we see her spending more time with the girls, asking help, helping them, even with a light blush on her cheeks, but slowly she becomes a more confident girl.

Aichi Sendou - Cardfight!! Vanguard (2011)

Aichi Sendou was mistaken as a girl when the show first aired because to this trait. Aichi is a shy kid because he was bullied which caused him to develop this shyness. He's wimpy, yes, and the kindest thing someone did to him was giving him a very rare card of a warrior. At that moment, Aichi wanted to change into that character and build his admiration for the person who gave it to them. Through the card game, Aichi became more confident. He was still bumbling in his first tournament, but soon he can stand at an equal level with, even higher than, the top card fighter. But when he enters high school, his shyness return because none of his classmates is familiar with the card game, but when he formed his own club he became confident once again.

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Hopefully, this might help you, dear reader and writer. Mostly because I’m also a writer I tend to appreciate slow character developments onscreen than fast developments offscreen. Show us more of your characters acting shy and slowly becoming more confident.