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muses
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𝑻𝑶 𝑫𝑶 𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 ~
✓ reply to Kate , from Regina ( xmoreissuesthanvogue )
These are especially good to ask your AI of choice after you've established your character to them. I typically submit a behavior ruleset and a summary of their entire life before asking questions.
Core worldview
What lie is at the core of this character's worldview?
What truth are they slowly learning over the course of their life?
What belief would completely shatter their identity if disproven?
What do they think everyone else secretly wants?
What do they assume about strangers before getting to know them?
What kind of person do they instinctively distrust?
What does this character think makes someone "good"?
What does this character think makes someone "successful"?
What does this character think is unforgivable?
What principle would they never willingly betray?
Identity
How would this character describe themselves in three words?
How would their best friend describe them?
How would their worst enemy describe them?
How accurate is their self-image?
What part of themselves are they proudest of?
What part of themselves do they try to hide?
What trait do they wrongly believe defines them?
If they suddenly lost their career or role in life, who would they be?
Priorities
What's their biggest priority?
If forced to choose between love and purpose, which wins?
If forced to choose between family and morality, which wins?
What are they willing to sacrifice?
What are they absolutely unwilling to sacrifice?
What goal quietly drives most of their decisions?
If they achieved everything they wanted, what would still be missing?
Emotional life
What emotion do they have the hardest time expressing?
Which emotion do they express too easily?
What makes them feel ashamed?
What makes them genuinely happy in a quiet way?
What can instantly ruin their mood?
How long do they stay angry?
Do they forgive easily, or keep score forever?
What emotion scares them the most?
Relationships
What makes them feel loved?
What makes them feel rejected?
How do they apologize?
How do they show affection when words fail?
What kind of people keep ending up in their life?
Who understands them the best?
Who understands them the least?
What relationship pattern keeps repeating?
Do they try to fix people, save people, control people, or leave people alone?
Conflict
How do they react when someone criticizes them?
How do they react when they're publicly embarrassed?
How do they react when they're powerless?
What kind of betrayal hurts them most?
If cornered, do they fight, flee, freeze, fawn, manipulate, negotiate, or joke?
How do they justify hurting someone else?
What would push them past their moral limits?
Secrets
What secret would they take to the grave?
What do they hope nobody ever finds out?
What do they lie about most often?
What do they lie to themselves about?
What's the worst thing they've ever done?
What memory do they replay at 3 a.m.?
Daily life
What small luxury do they never deny themselves?
What chore do they procrastinate on?
What does their bedroom reveal about them?
What's always in their pockets or bag?
How organized are they when nobody's watching?
What habit annoys everyone around them?
What irrational superstition do they have?
Fear
What's their biggest fear?
What fear would they never admit out loud?
What nightmare keeps coming back?
What possibility terrifies them because it might actually happen?
What are they overprepared for?
What are they completely unprepared for?
Decision-making
When making decisions, do they trust logic, instinct, experience, emotion, authority, or someone else?
How long do they dwell on mistakes?
Do they seek advice or make choices alone?
Are they better in a crisis than in ordinary life?
Do they overthink or underthink?
Morality
Under what circumstances would they kill?
Under what circumstances would they lie?
Would they steal to feed a starving child?
Do the ends justify the means?
Which law would they gladly break?
Which personal rule matters more to them than the law?
Self-awareness
What are they completely right about?
What are they completely wrong about?
What's their biggest blind spot?
What flaw do they know they have but refuse to change?
What flaw do they desperately want to change?
If they went to therapy, what would the therapist identify within five sessions?
Legacy
How do they want to be remembered?
How will they actually be remembered?
Who would miss them the most?
Who would secretly feel relieved if they disappeared?
If they died tomorrow, what unfinished business would haunt them?
Fun hypotheticals
If they could kill anyone without consequences, who would they kill?
If they won $100 million overnight, what would they do first?
If they could erase one memory, would they?
If they could ask one person one question and be guaranteed an honest answer, who and what?
If they met their 15-year-old self, what would happen?
If they met their 80-year-old self, would they listen?
If they swapped lives with their greatest enemy for one week, what would surprise them most?
For long-running RP characters, some of the richest prompts are comparative rather than static:
"How would this character answer all of these questions at age 10? 16? 25? 40? Present day?"
"What changed them the most psychologically between each life stage?"
"Which parts of their personality are innate versus survival adaptations?"
"Which traits disappear when they finally feel safe?"
"Who would this character have become if one defining event had never happened?"
Those kinds of questions tend to produce nuanced, internally consistent characterizations and often uncover motivations that weren't obvious when the character was first created.
This is to develop a ruleset for your fictional characters so no matter what you throw at them, they don't stray from who they are. If your character is not firmly based on any other character, then first I would recommend writing everything you know about your character, their life story, timeline, every quirk, family relationships, everything you know about them, submit that to your favorite AI and then ask it do Phase 1 based off of that information.
Note: I used ChatGPT for this so you may need to adjust something according to what you use.
PHASE 1: The Template
PASTE THE FOLLOWING INTO A CHAT. REPLACE “CHARACTER NAME” WITH THE CHARACTER YOUR MUSE’S PERSONALITY IS BASED ON, NOT STORYLINES, BUT WHO YOU WANT THEM TO EMULATE BEHAVIOR-WISE.
Translate the personality of [CHARACTER NAME] into an abstract behavioral ruleset.
Constraints:
No narrative.
No plot summary.
No scene language.
No quotes unless used as behavioral evidence.
No moral judgment.
No therapy language.
Focus only on:
Core emotional drivers
Attachment style
Relationship orientation
Caregiving or bonding patterns
Control mechanisms
Conflict style
Anger expression
Vulnerability rules
Fear structure
Validation loops
Stress responses
Security restoration conditions
Write in short, clear statements.Period-separated fragments are preferred over commas.Em dashes only for clarifying information, not structure.
The output should function as a portable personality operating system that can be applied to other characters’ lives without copying surface traits.
PHASE-2: Create Project
When you get a Phase-1 output you like, freeze it.
Create a Project for each character, name it something like [Character Name] — Original Character.
In each Project, include the following directive into the Project Instructions:
This project applies a locked external behavioral ruleset to the original character. Do not change the character’s canon life, history, or relationships. Map the ruleset onto how they behave, attach, react, and make decisions within their existing circumstances.
PHASE-3: New Chat
Start a fresh chat inside the Project and paste in this order:
This project applies a locked external behavioral ruleset to the original character. Do not change the character’s canon life, history, or relationships. Map the ruleset onto how they behave, attach, react, and make decisions within their existing circumstances.
Focus on:
“How their attachment style shows up in current relationships”
“How their caregiving or control patterns manifest day-to-day”
“How they handle conflict, tension, and emotional distance”
“What triggers escalation vs. what calms them down”
“Where their behavior intensifies, softens, or becomes maladaptive”
Constraints:
“Do not copy surface traits, aesthetics, or events from the source character”
“Do not rewrite backstory or insert new canon”
“Prioritize emotional logic and behavioral patterns only”
“Keep tone human, RP-friendly, and grounded in lived behavior”
“Use short, natural phrasing. Period-separated fragments where appropriate.”
Output as applied character insight, not analysis.
[Character Name] — Behavioral Ruleset (Locked)
[The full Phase-1 output]
Do not alter either section unless explicitly told.
[Character Name] — Canon Life & Traits (Fixed)
Include: Backstory, relationships & any non-negotiable traits.
Now in that same chat (or new ones within the Project), you prompt like this:
Apply the behavioral ruleset to this character’s life. Show how it shapes their behavior, relationships, and emotional responses without changing history.
or
Apply the ruleset to [specific situation / relationship / scenario].
You can use this ruleset going forward for every question you have about your character. If you want to know how they should react to something, this a great way to help with that so you don't have a character doing something that makes no sense for them.
Ever feel like your characters are holding out on you? Like there’s something lurking beneath the surface... but they’re just sitting there, being cryptic?
We’ve got some new templates to help you discover their emotional arcs, relationships, and backstories!
Character Arc Planning Template: Growth, self-destruction, spiralling into chaos at the first sign of trouble... Track how your character changes (or refuses to).
Character Relationship Template: Friends, enemies, lovers, ex-lovers-who-are-now-rivals-with-awkward-sexual-tension... Explore relationship dynamics and define how your characters connect.
Emotional Wound Template: Uncover concealed motivations, and craft character-defining backstory with depth and care.
You can find them in Ellipsus—head over to the blog to read more!
LANGSTON: You know what I realized today? What a gift it is to have you back in my life. You're a beautiful tornado of a gift, honey. And I know I damn sure don't deserve it.
ALMI: Damn sure don't.
LANGSTON: But I got it. I just want to thank you for it. I love you, honey.
A few quick notes on how to get the most out of it (without bloating it):
This is designed to be filled out fast and instinctively, not like a personality essay.
Short, blunt answers tend to be more useful for RP than nuanced ones.
If two questions in a section both feel tempting, that tension itself is telling. Pick the one that feels harder to sit with.
In each section: Answer the chosen core question using canon behavior. Ask, silently: “What would this threaten if it went wrong?” (fear). Ask, silently: “What is she trying to secure or preserve here?” (desire). Only the core question gets an explicit written answer. The fear/desire prompts tell you what that answer is actually about.
The “Snapshot Summary” at the bottom is especially useful if you ever want to back into enneagram typing later (including wings, subtypes, stackings, and lines).
A one-page decision-pressure template for RP muses
Answer instinctively. Choose the question in each section that feels most revealing or uncomfortable. Brief answers are better than polished ones.
Does your OC care about approval from their family? Are there any situations or aspects of their life where their family’s approval matters more or less to them than it typically does?
“No one wants to look at art of OCs” I don’t think that’s true at all…I follow people specifically to see their OCs literally all the time. Bring back being curious about people’s OCs, asking questions about them and hyping them up like we did when we were teens
There are lots of character development worksheets out there, but in my opinion nothing that really examines a character’s growth and development, which is what I’m aiming to do with mine. You can use this to better understand your character, spot “holes” in their development, or to build a character from scratch!
_____________________
Ancestry
What is this character’s lineage?
Are there any genetic factors that may affect them? (Mental illness/disabilities that run in the family, magical lineage, etc.?)
What is/was their parents’ social class?
What are their parents/caregivers like prior to their being born?
If not raised by their parents, then by whom? Are their caretakers of a different social class than the character? How are they treated as a result?
In the case of non-human characters, what is the status of their “kind” prior to their birth/construction/etc.? (E.g., are they the first generation of a new AI? Are they the first generation of vampires to live in the light?)
Are there changing social values between prior generations and their own that may affect them?
_____________________
Circumstances at Birth
What is their parental status at birth? (Single mother, both parents, etc.)
What social class is your character born into?
What is expected of your character based on the social class that they are born into? By their parents/caregivers? By the society they live in?
How are they advantaged/disadvantaged at birth? Disability? Poverty? Etc.
Are there any circumstances surrounding their birth that may affect their early childhood? (For example, they were unwanted by their parents/caregivers, they were the long-awaited heir to a kingdom, or they were born (assigned as) a girl when the parents were hoping for a boy?)
_____________________
Childhood
If they lose a parent/are orphaned/adopted/parents divorce, etc., at what age does this happen? a.) How does the age at which this happened affect them? Do they remember this change? Are they affected by the change?
Does their social status/class change at any point during childhood? Why?
What is their relationship with their parents/caregivers like? How do these interactions affect them in later life? (For example, a perfectionist character may have only received approval from their parents for big achievements.)
Do they have siblings or other close relationships with family members of a similar age? (Do bear in mind that early relationships with siblings can play a strong role in the way that people approach friendships in later years.)
If they have siblings, what is their birth order, and how does this affect them?
What are some of the most impactful moments from their childhood? How do these moments affect them? What do they learn from these experiences? (E.g., “authority figures aren’t to be trusted).
Was their childhood a happy one? If not, how do they see their childhood as an adult? Does this make them angry, do they try to ignore it, or have they moved on?
What are their typical social interactions like as children? Do they have a lot of friends, are they shy, etc.?
Do they exhibit expected behaviors or have difficulty conforming? (Conforming to gender roles or not, for example.)
What are their primary interests as a child?
_____________________
Adolescence
Is there a turning point that moves your characters from childhood and into a more “mature” perspective? (For example, the death of a loved one.)
Does their social status/class change at any point during adolescence? Why?
How does their relationship with their parents develop from childhood to adolescence?
Do any major changes occur in their life during adolescence? How do these changes affect them?
In the case of MOGAI characters, at what point does your character realize they are “different” than the expected social norm? What are the circumstances surrounding that?
What is your character’s attitude toward sex and sexuality? How does their interaction with their parents/caregivers affect them?
How much independence is your character granted as an adolescent?
Does your character have more/less responsibility than the typical adolescent? In what ways? (For example, having to take care of a younger sibling.
How does their social life change (or not change) from childhood to adolescence?
How are they prepared for adulthood as an adolescent?
When in their society are they expected to become an “adult”?
How do their interests evolve from childhood to adolescence?
Is there a defining moment that transitions them from adolescence into adulthood? (Joining the military, moving out, etc.)
_____________________
Adulthood
What is their primary attitude towards life based on their experiences in childhood and adolescence?
What kinds of events would be necessary to change these attitudes?
Does their social status/class change as they reach adulthood, or at any point after? Why?
Are they generally independent as an adult? Why/why not?
Do they retain their relationship with their family on reaching adulthood?
Do they retain their social group from adolescence?
How/where do they meet new friends/love interests?
What is their attitude toward romance/love/family? What are their main goals regarding this as they enter adulthood?
What is their main goal as an adult? (A high-paying career, romance, family, to have fun, to survive, etc.)
How do their goals change over time? As they meet old goals and set new ones?
How do their interests mature from adolescence to adulthood? (For example, an interest in writing as a teen may lead them to a career in publishing.)
_____________________
Older Age
Do they accomplish their goals as set out in earlier adulthood? How do they feel if these goals are not met?
As they approach older age, what is their social class?
Do they build a family in their adulthood? What is this family like?
If they become a parent, how is their relationship with their children affected by the relationship they had with their own parents?
What do they want to “leave behind” in the world?
Do they become a mentor/teacher to others?
As they grow older, how do they feel about the concepts of aging? Weakening? Death?
Think outside the box as you answer these. Remember that if you bend and stretch them enough, these questions can fit into virtually any world.
⊰ Eliminated Mulder Donnelly (David Duchovny) and Scully Anderson (Gillian Anderson), as well as their children Gwen Donnelly (Crystal Reed) and Riles Donnelly (Kyd Duchovny). Also eliminated Albany Scully, Homer Anderson, Homer Anderson Jr. (Dylan Baker), Melissa Anderson, Devon Anderson (), Madeline Anderson (Shelly Cole) and Willow Anderson (Haley Lu Richardson).
⊰ The storyline of Mulder and his sister Gweneth was given to Voight Donnelly.
⊰ Dean Donnelly’s middle name went from Mulder to Owen.
⊰ All storylines involving the Crystal Reed face were given to Solace Rockefeller.
⊰ All the above faces (other than Crystal obviously) are open to other characters but not needed. | Notes: The Shelley would have to be 1992 and the Haley would be dating Merlin Rockefeller. The Dylan would have to include the councilman storyline from Third Watch. All of those aspects are open to other characters too (i.e. Paris and Iggy's friend doesn't have to look like Shelly, the councilman storyline doesn't have to belong to someone that looks like Dylan, etc.)