#79b ocs

[another-dra-anew]

Oc-tober Week 1

I had three different activities back to back to back last night and woke up so sick I've literally just been camped out on the couch all day. But I really wanna do OC-tober, because I love talking about BTBB world building. I'll probably have to get creative with some prompts, but the ones from Week 1 were pretty easy to answer! Under the cut, not for spoilers, but because of length.

New OC ;

Not quite new, but someone who hasn't been mentioned here, and has gotten a bit more development lately. Meet Matsuyoshi Yurika, a former HPA hopeful! Felt pretty confident that she'd be scouted as SHSL Journalist, and was one of ~20-25 students who frequently made people's lists for who they thought might be scouted. Did not get scouted, and feels very very shorted. Her feelings are starting to warp and worsen as the days go by. Has recently started to theorize that a specific 79-B girl might have been switched in last minute, taking the spot that would have gone to her. Having a target for her pain and anger is not a good development for anyone.

Old OC ;

I think one of the first OC's I made for BTBB would be... wow, probably someone's parent? Ōtori Maricar, Teruya's mom, comes to mind, but so does Reginald Banks, Haruhiko's dad. Maricar is a Filipina who met Kojiro at a wedding; he was the best man, and she was the sister of the bride! Reggie is American, and met Kobashikawa Yuriko (also OC) when stationed in Japan; he went into the Navy for better career options, but wanted to join the air force. Both Maricar and Reggie left behind their families/home countries to marry the person they'd go off to start a family with, which is a fun similarity between two early OCs.

Fave OC ;

A hard pick! I'm really attached to Tsurugi's mom, Tomori's sister, and Uehara's siblings. But, let me name one I actually have good reason to talk about. Katō Masami is an Ultimate Student, and the current headmaster of HPA. They're sooo fun to me. Has shelves upon shelves of books and DVD's, likes to garden, and looks the same as they did in high school. They wore a cardigan to work today and are hoping that it isn't too informal. They're like 5'2 and their bangs cover up their eyes, so they have to pin them up when interacting with students. They're on the lore page here on Anew.

Sona/Self Insert ;

I do not have a self insert for BTBB </3. A few people in server have played around with some for me, so there's some characters inspired by me that might show up in the background on occasion. If I were to make one, he would have literally no connection to HPA at all. He goes to school in the Midwest and is majoring in ASL. That feels pretty accurate to how I go about au'ifying things nowadays. Maybe he's been on a plane Koba was piloting. Good for you, non-existent self insert!

Under-Appreciated OC ;

Honestly, it's my Iranami sibling OCs. I want to make more of them, but like... despite having 15+? right now, who I took time and effort to give concepts and plot lines and personalities that I care about, none of them ever really catch my attention. They've been around for soooo long, and I don't think I've ever thought about them outside of how they affected Satsuki. I can't even find my old notes on who had what lore. Anyways, funny detail is that a bunch of them were adopted, and Iranami's parents only picked kids who had hair/eyes that were blue, yellow, or pink.

[another-dra-anew]

spoilers for most recent post on main (ch3 deadly post trial spoilers)

Second screenshot is from the Lore/Extra page here on anew. Anyways. lol lmao. She had five kids, Kinji was her favorite but she tried to pretend like she wasn't biased. I love getting to give BTBB family lore.

[another-dra-anew]

Hey Maeda, what would you say your relationship with your mother is like? Do you love her?

//Maeda looks at you, with an expression that, somehow, is obviously saying "Why the actual fuck would you ask someone that? Whoa? ???". He doesn't seem... upset, though. So, win on your end.

Maeda - ...Uhhhhhhh?

//He swirls his latte slightly; looking for something sensory, so his mind isn't 100% on the question.

Maeda - ...

Maeda - Well.

Maeda - ...

Maeda - ...

Maeda - ...You know.

Maeda - ...

//He drinks from his cup.

Maeda - ...Yeah, you know. Uh-

Maeda - I love Miyono. My relationship with her, is like... great.

Maeda - She and I get along really well. And she, like... definitely did the most to raise me growing up.

Maeda - Hisao was sort of my... secondary caretaker. He helped with some stuff. But Miyono did the most- which didn't really look like being my mom, but...

Maeda - Like. The ways I help to try and take care of some of the littler kids at the house, she was doing all of that for me- and she was basically the only one.

Maeda - She made sure I had clothes to wear, made sure I had something set aside to eat... stuff like that.

Maeda - When I started up at school, then started to have a... weird time, she was the one who made an appointment, then took me to a doctor. She's only, eh... six, seven years older than me?

Maeda - So... she was definitely doing a lot- both generally, and at her age, and given her, like... life. She had her own stuff going on, you know?

Maeda - I try to sort of be there for the younger kids, now that I'm older... but it's hard, because there's a lot of them, and they-

Maeda - Like, everyone there has issues, and it's never a guarantee how long someone will stay.

Maeda - Miyono and I were a weird case, and so much of the way things worked out for us were because she was the original kid.

Maeda - ...Uh-

Maeda - That's not what you asked, though-

Maeda - Kind of a strange question, right? You know that?

Maeda - It's like... fine, though.

Maeda - I don't want to air too much of... my mom's shit, I guess. It sort of impacts a lot more people than just her- but, you know what I mean.

Maeda - ...We aren't close. We never have been, and-

Maeda - God. I guess you never know what'll happen, but I really don't think we ever will be.

Maeda - And that's fine. I don't care. She's, like...

Maeda - ...

Maeda - Honestly, I really only think of my mom when she's brought up- when people talk about their moms.

Maeda - She's such a... non-factor in my life.

//He thinks back to what you actually asked.

Maeda - As far as our relationship goes, we just don't have one. It's better for everyone like that, and I'm... farrr past having an issue with it.

Maeda - ...I wouldn't say I love her. But I definitely don't hate her. I literally just... don't have feelings on her.

Maeda - I don't know.

Maeda - God save Maeda Aiko's soul. I guess.

Maeda - ...Sorry, that makes me sound religious. I wasn't trying to invoke anything there. And she's, like... fine. Don't- worry about it too much.

//Maeda drinks from his cup again. A moment passes.

Maeda - ...

Maeda - Miyono's at university now. She's in her second year.

Maeda - I bring it up because I'm really happy for her. I don't think I'd feel okay with being at Hope's Peak if she wasn't-

Maeda - I'd feel... guilty, having an opportunity like this if she wasn't off chasing after her own goals.

Maeda - ...

//He feels bad, like he's circumventing your question.

Maeda - ...She goes to the same school our mom went to. Isn't that sort of funny?

[another-dra-anew]

OC-tober Week 2

Sunday is a nice day for me because my workplace is closed Sundays now, so I always have Sundays off. Great day to do OCtober. I'm so smart and good at planning. Time for that incredible brain to kick in to make these prompts work.

Under the cut for length, not spoilers

Relationships ;

In Class 69-A, there's a little ragtag group that I really like. A lot of the classes have semi-superlatives I make fun of them with, and Class 69-A is my orphan class, because none of the members of the sub-group have parents, and they're the ones that are actually relevant. (I'm attached to other students from the class, but these are the ones with the lowest degree of removal from the plot). When it comes to OC relationships, this is probably the most fun group, and the one I think of first.

Eto, Hirayama, Morikawa, Otani, and Usui are... sort of friends. There's a lot of lore and backstory going on there, but it's... ultimately, the things they may dislike about each other serve to isolate them from the rest of the class, and this winds up pushing them into a group together, which makes them all friends! Of the group, Hirayama is the oldest OC, Eto is probably the most popular, and Usui comes to my mind the most. Otani is really fun in terms of arc, and Morikawa is really fun in terms of design and role. I was going to do an event centered around Class 69, but it didn't end up happening.

(For the characters given names + talents, check the lore page!)

Home ;

Gonna talk about some design stuff here. It's sooo fun and so stressful to try and work out where people live/what their houses look like. I'm not very imaginative when it comes to spaces, and floor plans are something I can sort of get tangled up by. Don't invite me to your house because you will end up seeing it used as a domicile for an OC. Also, the prompt mentions the option of discussing places characters are from- to tie this back to BTBB a bit, do you all understand how hard it was to work around my desire to make these kids ~diverse~ in background? I had to have a reason for Kobashikawa to go by his moms name. I had to have a reason for Uehara to go by his moms name. I had to make Maeda's nonsense make sense. Do not get me started on ACG because everything is so much worse there. Side note, we got Koba-dad's name the other day, but I haven't mentioned Uehara's. His dad is Timeo Abatangelo. Kinji Abatangelo. Hehe.

Personality ;

I've never really struggled much with creating personalities for OCs, to be honest. If I were to try and compliment myself, I think personality design is a strong suit of mine? It's hard to demonstrate this with how patchwork BTBB's writing is right now, but that's fine. I'm capable of accepting that. It's fine. I really want to make deep dives on the kids's writing when BTBB is done. BUT THOSE AREN'T REALLY OC'S. They don't count.

Anyways, whenever my OCs start to feel a bit same-y, I like to play two games. One, I remind myself that a lot of people can come across really similar, and be super reminiscent of each other. I think I sort of categorize people in my head a bit, and group them based on like... "Oh, other person I know would totally say something like that too." What's fun about OC's is getting to decide what the internal differences are between characters who are outwardly the same. We're all special snowflakes! All unique, because we have our own blend of the same options for ingredients.

The second thing I like to do is put the OC's in a room in my brain, and make them argue until I've worked out what their difference is.

Inventory ;

Ooooooh. Hm. Hm hm hm.

I like to think about what my OC's would carry in their bags. It can be fun to think about who wears clothes that give them pockets vs who's in the right environment to be carrying a bag (and what type of bag!), etc. I don't have a lot to say for this one. I think more about what they're wearing than what they're holding. Which makes me want to talk about my Ultimate Collector OC, but they're not BTBB. Damn.

Symbolism ;

Symbolism in BTBB gets weird. To talk about mainline for a moment, I think it sometimes feels shoehorned in, but please pay some attention to the celestial body symbolism. The reason it's so overt/such a repeated metaphor is because it'll be consistent. We will continue to see that symbolism, and the way it's used is aiming to make explicit the implicit changes going on in the story. Go reread Maeda's introduction /hj.

That to say, I don't tend to do a ton of symbolism with OC's! In ADRAverse, symbolism is such a BTBB specific thing. It's only relevant in ACG when the goal is to invoke/reference BTBB. BTBB owned celestial symbolism so hard, now no one else gets symbolism at all. I like to use colors in designs, though. That's a good way of bringing this back to OC's. A lot of my OC's have fairly themed colors. I love a nice color gimmick. Tomori's family is Neapolitan ice cream. I mentioned Iranami's family and their adoption criteria. Lots of fun going on there at least.

Skills ;

I LOVE making SHSL OC's. Everyone gets a talent. Everyone. It's so fun to me. I need to start doubling-up on talents (there may already be a few?) so I can explore characters who have the same talent. I already kinda do that with legacy students (and with BTBB main cast!) and it's fun.

It's also nice though to look at non SHSL characters... I guess... I'll talk about BTBB family members for now, or whatever. Whatever... Shira (Koba's older sister) plays drums and bass guitar. Mekaru's friend, Okada Aimi, has like... no skills and it's really funny to me. You can't even say she's a normal girl, because most people have like... some sort of something they get up to. Okada does her homework and gets stressed out by all the damn kids in the house. Maeda's older brother Eizo is a bit of a sports protegee, he has really insane hand/eye coordination, and his older sister Yune is really solid at hair and make-up. Tomori's dad makes origami, and Uehara's little brother is really good at logic puzzles and riddles.

Weaknesses ;

Okay how do I do this without naming backstory things. Half of the parents are really bad at staying alive that's something they struggle with. This is a trait they pass on to their kids.

In a past year, the prompt for the 12th was future, and I'm doing that one instead.

Tomori's sister Kumiko wants to be a chef when she grows up, and doesn't plan on having kids, but might foster. She'd also like to be a teacher. Koba's sister Miki doesn't like to think about what she wants to do when she gets older. Iranami's brother Kisho wants to be an architect. Hatano's brother Katsumi is already excited to go to university. Higa's dad, Tatsunori, actually wanted to play baseball for a career, when he was a kid. Inori's mom, Mioko, wanted to marry someone who would provide for her financially.