Do you ever notice your characters start developing quirks all on their own?

[bronte448]

I'm not trying to be creepy here, this is a genuine question.

In chapter one, Fresh perches in a tree to hide from human Sans, and in chapter four, I almost subconsciously made him perch in a tree again during a fight scene. (Still working on that page.) He just likes being a birb
Has this sort of thing ever happened to you? Have you ever subconsciously decided to have your characters do one strange thing over and over?

[darthmongoose]

Rekki and seeming to forget she has a sword and punching or kicking monsters. I never really intended it to be a character trait that borders on a running joke or metaphor for how she thinks she needs the sword but doesn't... it was kind of a quirk that just happened. It's one of those things where it just feels like what she'd do. She's a scrapper, and she acts before she thinks, so it's a thing now, Rekki drops or forgets about her sword a lot.

[bronte448]

You raise a good point. Fresh is hyper-analytical, he would probably almost instinctively seek out the highest vantage point...

[RobertBMarks]

This happens to me all the time.

At one point in the sequel, Aquila (one of the new characters) just outright turned herself into the 11th Doctor Who...apparently, she needs to be played by Matt Smith. She also puts her coat (ankle-length, double-breasted military) on doorknobs regardless of if there is a hanger nearby, and she is a coffee fiend.

None of this was planned when I started writing the story.

There's also a pretty big character spoiler coming in a couple of chapters of Re:Apotheosis for Captain Infinite, which was also not present in the original outline.

[powerplantanimations]

Gonna copy and paste this comment from my latest episode since I feel like it fits in with this comment and I THINK it counts.

Here's a... "fun" fact about this episode: when I was re-reading Episode 6, I realized how disturbing it was for Naota to draw stick figures constantly in his journal. I wish I could've established it in the story, but drawing a stick figure is the same like drawing an accurate person in real life... and the Dodgeball Arc made me realize he was studying anatomy at that point. Episode 6 may seem like an innocent joke at the time, but I wanted to flesh it out a bit since the dude is a harem protag (who's able to draw himself accurately if the Naota Notes are anything to go by).

This was the joke btw:

Seriously, the more I look at this the more I go "Yeaaaah... this is creepy".

[JaveCraze]

This sort of doesn't count, but whatever:
My main character's hair is ALWAYS tucked behind the ear, and at first I did it because I thought it would be a decent character design thing, but then I started making scenes where they wouldn't have the chance to fix their hair, such as when they're asleep, to imply that offscreen they put it behind their ear.
Yeah.. pretty boring, I know... but just you wait until I make a foil that NEVER tucks his long hair behind his ears. Always hair in his face. Then your minds will be blown.

[TedGravesArt]

Absolutely. I try to take my hands off the wheel a lot of times when I write my characters, and when they're developed enough, they start writing themselves and developing habits and behaviors all on their own. When this happens I take it as a sign that I've got an interesting character.

[bronte448]

Anyone else? Anyone at all?

[Enthriex]

My characters tend to write themselves haha, I might have something planned and while writing things normally change to accommodate what they want to do instead

So yeah, I do get what you mean somehow. There were these characters I made years ago that when I wrote them or thought about them, they just felt 'wrong' and I was in constant conflict cause it was as if when I wrote them, they told me like "No, this isn't what I want", and had a mental struggle about them until I sat down to actually "ask" them what they actually wanted.

[CloudyMagpie]

So a little gag at the beginning of my comic (which is on, like, super hiatus right now so I feel kinda guilty even talking about it ) was for my character Roach to just hop onto Sonny's back for a random piggyback ride. But as I've drawn and written for them a lot more lately, it almost seems like Roach will take any opportunity to climb on Sonny and it's honestly just so fun to draw and such a cute way for them to express their friendship, I love it.

.

[Spectorium_1]

Yep, I'm just writing my new story "The killer of guiles" a more BL slice of life story, and my MC just developed a good acting skill and consistently uses Mr. xxx Ms.xxxx as part of his jokes. Another one of the characters I'm in the middle of creating changes their hair style every 3 days or so, so like...

[system]

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