here at cali you pick a fictional character you love and write them. you change their names and keep their personalities. your goal is to morph said character to fit the community setting: an sol character living in orange county. this means that supernatural/fantasy characters won't actually be supernatural or from a fantasy world but you're able to get creative and take parts of their childhood/stories and work the into your character's background. we know this will disappoint some people and we're sorry, we just don't see any feasible way to make every single universe work in one setting. credit for these faqs from aspect.
q. what characters can i play? you can play any fictional character from any tv, movie or book. animated characters whether from cartoons or video games are also allowed as well as characters from greek mythology. you cannot play any non-fictional characters even if they were in a movie. for example: you can't play abe lincoln because there was a movie about him. you can age up or down your characters however you'd like so long as they're over 18. peter pan can be 25, violet crawley can be 32.
q. how different can i make them? this answer varies by how much information is available about your character and how much you can reasonably translate into the community setting. we request you change their names to allow more creativity and backgrounds are the most flexible. personality wise we'd love for you to keep it as close as possible so that we have very different personalities in the community. we encourage you to keep the problematic aspects of your character. we do acknoweldge that some characters are extremely awful. in these cases, you are allowed to make some changes if you'd like to play a less harsh version of them. for example: if you'd like to write the joker he doesn't have to be criminally insane or willing to blow up buildings or kill people for fun. if you want to play a character like scar from the lion king, he doesn't have to be willing to kill his brother to take something from him.
q. does my pb have to be the same? no. in fact, we discourage that. you can find a look alike or something completely different (keep in mind whitewashing/genderbending is not allowed).
q. can i play a taken character but from a different universe? to keep things simple, no. if someone is playing belle from beauty and the beast and it appears they've stuck closely to the disney version, you can't bring any other iteration of belle that exists (once upon a time, grimm fairytales, etc). for any gray areas that you're unsure about please ask first.
q. am i obligated to relationships my character is known for? absolutely not. keep in mind that while you're playing these characters you're not playing them in their worlds. for example: ron weasley doesn't have to become harry potter's best friend. hermione granger doesn't have to date ron weasley. in fact, she could date john mcclain. don't act or feel entitled to any line you think you are because of their media counterparts.
q. what about family? some people will come in with characters that are known for their siblings. you are not bound to that but we highly suggest keeping to it if you can. remember, your character's background can be molded into what you want, so if your character makes more sense in your mind without a sibling that's okay. but remember, family lines are fun. you could have a lot of fun bringing in anna and elsa from frozen or members of the stark clan from game of thrones. we just ask you keep an open mind when considering family for your character but we do not bound anyone to these connections. having said that, you can overlap characters for family lines. wanna say your draco malfoy just happens to be siblings with regina george? go for it!
q. what are the rules about sexuality, white-washing and genderbending? first off, please no genderbending. we do feel that there are enough male and female characters that exist for you to choose from in every universe that there's no need. you may not whitewash and you cannot make a character that is canonically gay anything other than gay. there is no need to make olivia pope white, no need to make connor walsh straight. having said that you can make a white character a poc and you can toy with a straight character's sexuality all you'd like. if you have a problem with this rule then don't join. it sounds harsh but these are very under-represented demographics in media and it's only fair to open it up for people. if you see someone breaking these rules please drop us a line before you get upset with us for "allowing it". while we are going to do our best we cannot possibly know everything about every character that joins. we hope to catch this every time but we're only human and we may miss something. let us know so we can fix it.
q. what's the etiquette on discussing media in the community if the character is being played? it's just rp so we're just asking that you use common sense. we're aware there is going to be some overlap... just don't get weird about it. try to avoid being too specific when talking to those characters or talking about specific characters in general if they're at the community. for example your characters can gush about how much they love the office but try not to talk about how much your character is in love with jim if a jim is in the community. we hope this made sense and we can't stop sol characters from talking about their favorite shows/media.
q. should i stay in my lane? yes. if someone makes creative choices you might not make that's okay. it shouldn't bother you or upset you enough to be an asshole about it. focus on your own character.
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