Cody (self insert char)

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Cody
Age:15
height: 5.7 feet
hair color: dark brown
eye color: redish brown
Race: Human
Element: Light
Ideal saying: "uh oh..."
Ideal Food: basic human food, pizza,coke,ect.


Character:

Cody is mostly calm and very understanding, Very headstrong when his friends get involved.Can be very forgiving and is also very protective of his friends. He is best friends with Codda and they always help each other out of tight places.. He is only a teen, but he isn't a child i assure you of that. He is always there to help a friend in need, and sometimes a predator if it involves gaining another ally. he found that his increased speed and stamina is met with a higher jump than a normal human.. he dosent need help jumping up into a tall tree anymore.. he has just recently become somewhat of a thief on earth, he claims its just because he has to survive in earth as much as felarya.. (but most people believe its out of anger.)


Strengths:

very emotionally strong, and not a bad fencer,has a higher stamina and all around speed than most humans. dont mess with his friends or he will open a can of 15 year old American whoop @$$ lol.


Weaknesses:

he isnt very physically strong, and is quite a bleeder. dosent stand up against nagas well, his headstrong personality dosent help situations either..


Backstory:

Before Cody found felarya he lost his mother in a fire, Cody was only 5 and got burned pretty bad too.. ever since he spent most of his life in an orphanage and then he lived on the streets.. he was scared of fire ever since. then he came to felarya by accident, could you imagine his face when he first saw Felarya?( O.O" lol ) when he appeared in felarya he wandered around for about 3 days and then was swallowed by a naga... after about half an hour inside the nagas stomach he was accompanied by Codda, a Fox-Spirit That has been living in felarya ever since he arrived. Codda then teleported Cody and himself out of the naga and Codda took Cody to his home and helped heal his wounds. He has been living in both Earth and Felarya ever since (mostly Felarya of course.) not long after during a walk the two companions happen to run across two identical black short swords with special markings on each blade.(picture of one of the swords is my avatar) Ever since being eatin by that naga he has shown a great hatred of all nagas, except for a few naga friends that he has helped out in some way. (cant post who they are yet, still getting permission)


<EDITED>

So you made a self insert?

kinda, if you want to call it that be my guest..

Gonna stop both of you right there.

This is something I see a lot, but it's still somewhat irksome.

Self-inserts are not inherently a bad thing. They can be, seeing as how they're often idealized, illogically powered versions of the writer, without much in the way of character interaction.

But they can also be rich and rewarding characters, provided one doesn't downplay their flaws.
Some of the most memorable characters around are somewhat self insert-ish. Katrika comes to mind. I hear Coop and Jamie of MEGAS XLR fame were partially based on the writers themselves.

The trick is to ensure that in the end, they're still balanced and have solid interaction with the rest of the cast. Basing the supporting characters on real people helps that along.

Hell, I have a Felarya persona myself. It's more of a gag character to go along with the rest of my friends, who also have quirky personas, but I like to think the character interaction is fairly well done.

That aside....

Yeah, this isn't really a very good example.
You're following the template set by the newbie. There's no logic behind any of it. Things just happen conveniently, for no reason. And it's not played for laughs, so it doesn't work.

Why would he have naga friends, but still inherently hate nagas? Is he an idiot?
Why would pleading with the fairies work? Why is it one of the most notoriously stuck up communities is not only healing people if they annoy them enough, but also giving them insane uber-weapons?

Also.... element? Since when did humans have elements?

The problem here is, he has all the flaws of the usual newb character. Teen who's suddenly grown up a lot due to having to kill people, illogical weapons, illogical backstory...

If you want to base a character on yourself, fine. But you're gonna have to develop their character and still define them as their own person.

For example, look at Katrika, one of the most well developed characters in the community. She's likable because the author is thinking of himself while writing her. But she still has her own backstory that defines her own character. Things happen for a reason. She still learns things. She learns things that the author himself knows he needs to do a better job of learning.

Just because it's based on you doesn't mean it's allowed to be imbalanced.

...Would this be a bad time to mention that Whiteagle is a self-based character?

Whiteagle wrote:

...Would this be a bad time to mention that Whiteagle is a self-based character?

I think not...

self-based chararters are good if created using our actual self as simple inspiration, just on a few particulars (like some way to think, manners, appearance. Using ourselves as models to give it more realism could do, and surely it makes it easier to write of him/her)

I mention that Azrah originally was meant to be my avatar character for DeviantArt, so myself from feet up.

Developing the ideas he became something totally different from me

aside the boob fetish... (AnnieAnnieAnnie)

nksrocks wrote:

Whiteagle wrote:

...Would this be a bad time to mention that Whiteagle is a self-based character?

I think not...

self-based chararters are good if created using our actual self as simple inspiration, just on a few particulars (like some way to think, manners, appearance. Using ourselves as models to give it more realism could do, and surely it makes it easier to write of him/her)

I mention that Azrah originally was meant to be my avatar character for DeviantArt, so myself from feet up.

Developing the ideas he became something totally different from me

aside the boob fetish... (AnnieAnnieAnnie)

i ALWAYS put a little bit of myself into my characters *points at Wal's sugar addiction*

Reptillian wrote:

nksrocks wrote:

Whiteagle wrote:

...Would this be a bad time to mention that Whiteagle is a self-based character?

I think not...

self-based chararters are good if created using our actual self as simple inspiration, just on a few particulars (like some way to think, manners, appearance. Using ourselves as models to give it more realism could do, and surely it makes it easier to write of him/her)

I mention that Azrah originally was meant to be my avatar character for DeviantArt, so myself from feet up.

Developing the ideas he became something totally different from me

aside the boob fetish... (AnnieAnnieAnnie)

i ALWAYS put a little bit of myself into my characters *points at Wal's sugar addiction*

Yeah that's exactly what I mean ^^ inspiration for character particularities

So I say, this self-based character is just at the beginning and by now it has many concept problems, but it won't be junk until you'll keep working on it and try to make it better and more sensed

nksrocks wrote:

I think not...

self-based chararters are good if created using our actual self as simple inspiration, just on a few particulars (like some way to think, manners, appearance. Using ourselves as models to give it more realism could do, and surely it makes it easier to write of him/her)

I mention that Azrah originally was meant to be my avatar character for DeviantArt, so myself from feet up.

Developing the ideas he became something totally different from me

aside the boob fetish... (AnnieAnnieAnnie)

Well there is the problem... Whiteagle isn't so much inspired by me as he IS me with superpowers...
While he is suppose to be an "Idealised" version of myself... I didn't think it would be good to exclude my own flaws from my Character.
So he not only has my (Probably inflated) "Good" characteristics, but my (Probably underplayed) "Bad" characteristics as well.

Well, I think an insert character could work...I'd never do it myself. Little bits of me pop up in my characters, at least the ones I like. As for this character - it seems sort of odd to have a 15 year old kid running around killing nagas with a sword...a sword given to him by fairies no less. A fairy would never give a human a sword because they would expect them to do just that! Not saying you have to make yourself a really wimpy walking snack...but you do have a fairly powerful companion so you don't need to be all that powerful yourself. Heck, living more than two weeks on Felarya makes you pretty strong as is.

well it keeps you ageless, which gives you all the time in the world to train. However, I dont think you should make your character so poweful when he's only 15.

My character Bael, an archmage has been around for almost 250 years, and that allowed me an excuse to make him powerful but not TOO powerful.

he is in no way really powerful.. and the only "uber" he will ever be is maybe surviving against a larger pred (which even that he cant do...) the thing with his hate for nagas.. he does hate them but he if he meets someone and gets to know them then he will be ok with that person...

and btw, i am new to felarya and if you guys are gonna get at me for being new then i dont care... hes only my second real char.. and if it helps to know im writing a story (dont even try looking for it, only a few selected people are alowd to read it) and in the story he dies X.x. so he wont be around much longer.. and if it helps to know how he dies he gets killed by a pred trying to preotect a friend.. la la whoopdy doo the end..

anything else you guys want to rip my char up about?

Quote :

dont even try looking for it, only a few selected people are alowd to read it

well how would you get and outside opinion for it?

I'm sorry to butcher your character so much, it just seemed a little ridiculous.

i understand some points may be a bit ridiculous... but none of my characters are set in cement until i actualy post that no more changes will be mande.. if you have a better way of saying something about one of my chars.. then let me know... im always open for opinions..

and only people involved in the story will be alowd to see it (for permissional reasons and for helping edit )