Faceclaims — How were you introduced?

I'd love to hear how you first discovered faceclaims! What were your first experiences with them? Was it through real-life or animanga? And what platform did you use? Where does your preference lie now? Is it similar to how you were introduced, or have you since switched to something different? Let's share our experiences about it!

 

My first experience with rp was zero face claims. You just wrote what your character looked like. From there, I started drawing my oc, then joined my first forum rp and face claim lists didn't exist. No one could claim anything, you could just use whatever image you used. I didn't use one for a very long time, then finally I used an anime one, and from there it's stuck with me.

I have used rl face claims, but it's never settled well with me. Taking someone who is real in the world and then writing rps with them. It just always felt really intrusive, and borderline disrespectful. Especially when I watched actors/actresses reactions to it, they were naturally disturbed but that was waved off because they were famous so their opinion didn't matter. :< So...I keep returning to anime since at least it isn't based on a real person. I guess I just think would I want my own face used in such a way, and since my answer has always been no thank you, I've followed the animanga path.

Although.................if I could snap my fingers. My real preference is to be an artist who can just draw all my own stuff. That way I'm not taking from an animanga either, that'd be nice.

 

I feel like Gaiaonline was the culprit for me lmao. I'm getting war flashbacks thinking about "the old days"! FCs became so standard I've kind of rolled over and accepted that people will use them and I still use them myself, but they're not 100% necessary imo. I'm not going to be That Person ("it's a writing hobby, you should be able to write what your character looks like!!1!") but I understand the perspective lol.

I do remember on Gaia most people had the rule that you couldn't use a big celebrity for RL FCs, you had to pick a model, and I remember that being really difficult for my character types at the time. Anyone else have the same problem? lol

 

Back in 2005, when I joined my first roleplay community, I discovered the idea of using anime, manga, or fan art as a visual representation of your character. At that time, there was no such thing as a “face claim,” and it was pretty much a free-for-all. Luckily, the site didn’t have issues with two characters using the same image.

For me, it quickly became clear that visual representations and RP characters went hand-in-hand. Artwork was usually taken from popular anime shows. Most people used anime or manga images, but after a few years, using real-life images started to gain traction, although those members were still in the minority on the site.

Because of my early experiences, using real people as visual representations felt strange to me. I found it hard to connect with characters that had real-life images, and it was jarring when I roleplayed with them.

Over the years, I’ve mainly stuck to animanga visual forums. I’ve tried a few real-life roleplay sites—about five in total—and I’ve noticed a clear differences between the two groups. I find the writing styles, characters, and backgrounds are typically inspired by popular anime on one side and popular TV shows on the real-life side. This difference also shows in the discussion topics on Discord, making it feel like there are two distinct sides to the roleplaying community.

 

I started with Horse RPs, so faceclaims weren't really a thing for us. I always knew about the human versions, and honestly was always a bit jealous, so now that I'm firmly in the fantasy/medieval world, I LOVE IT.

We use faceclaims and posting tables on my site, and by no means am I trying to be a lazy writer, but it really is so nice to be able to fall back on images of what your character looks like rather than constantly having to describe their little nuances.

That said, I always prefer FCs that aren't wildly popular. I'm not sure I could ever write with someone using Taylor Swift's FC and not just constantly be singing the lyrics or thinking about her cats.