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violetlunette · 3 years

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Hello~ In the Eri Critical post you mentioned you almost made Toru a makeshift OC and could I ask you to elaborate on that? She's a side character and imo Horikoshi hasn't given much to work with, so isn't any depth or expansion added by other writers gonna make her different to the canon? What metric do you use to judge if you strayed too far? I ask cause I'm writing a fic where Toru is more prominent and thus I will have to expand on her character.

This was a hard question for me to answer because you’re right. We have nearly nothing to work with when it comes to Toru, which sucks when you want to write a story with her. Therefore nearly anything we do is in a way “fanon.” I have run into this problem myself as I’ve tried to write her in a main role as well. So, this where I have to apologize to people who try to write for Eri. It’s near impossible to write for a character where we’re given only crumbs to work with without shifting them into Ocs. So how do we combat it? I dunno. But here’s how I try; The first question I ask myself is this, “is the character performing this action or feeling the way they are because that’s how they would in this situation? Or it because it’s how I want them to respond or feel?” If the answer is ever the latter, then I go back and think some more. For example, Toru likes Caramel. It’s her favorite food. If she turns it down, there has to be a reason; sore tooth, too depressed to eat, etc. She can’t turn down the candy just because I, the author, say so.

Don’t fall into the trap and make a character react the way you would. Make sure to ask yourself if this is how the character would do it.

Next what I try to do is take what little we do see in canon and expand on that. As for the metric for when I've gone too far—it’s complicated-ish? Below is what I know about Toru off the top of my head. If I’ve strayed too far from any of these points without a reason, then I either need to go back or make a reason that would make sense for her to act differently from “canon.” For example, Toru isn’t very strong in canon as she’s the third-worst in class. If I want to make her strong I would have to provide a reason why such as training montage or science magic. Keep in mind all my knowledge comes from the manga as I haven’t watched the anime. Hopefully, it’ll help when writing Toru.

*The biggest thing to keep in mind is that Toru loves her quirk and is very proud of it. In fact, she places a great deal of confidence in it, even when we see over and over that it’s not perfect. She’s vulnerable to cold, she can be revealed easily, etc. Yet she never tries to overcome these flaws, instead, she seems to ignore them. Thinking about it, she seems to have put all her eggs in one basket by focusing sorely on stealth in the story. (It’s said she can fight, but we don’t see anything impressive.) When she discovers her light manipulation, she works on that, but that’s because it's a part of her quirk. This can be a big weakness for her arc, refusing to admit that her quirk isn’t flawless and she needs to focus on other things like agility and strength building. **This would explain why she doesn’t get a real costume (outside of the meta reasons). In her head, she’s thinking she doesn’t need to waste time with armor, she just needs to get better at hiding/sneaking. (And being naked isn’t a big deal to her.) *Something that differs from fanon is that in canon she’s actually fairly confident. She’s usually portrayed as insecure about herself in fanfics because she “doesn’t have a face.” However, in the story, Toru seems to have the most confidence of all the girls. I have never seen an instance where she’s down about herself. This is most likely because her quirk allows her not to be judged by appearances. Actually, now that I seem to think about it, she might be putting her whole identity in her quirk, which is seen as pretty cool. *She seems to like to poke fun and tease others. She’s aware that she’s naked, but she doesn’t see it as a big deal. She sees it as funny—or at least people’s reactions to her being naked. When she strips she usually brings it to attention, then pretends to be shy or upset. **The fact her favorite thing is hidden prank shows adds to this. **She uses the lack of appearance to troll others too by saying she looks like a Geisha and an old saint. ***May have some knowledge in history. *She’s optimistic and always looks on the bright side when she can. *Usually easy going. Doesn’t seem to like dwelling on things. If she’s mad, she’ll huff and puff, but will then move on with her life. Though she may occasionally attack an offender. *She’s very friendly and bubbly. *She’s a bit of a ditz. An example is how she forgot to put a rage away in the light novels and knocked Aizawa out. *VERY SMALL, but I noticed she’s one of the few to get annoyed with Bakagou (for two seconds, but still). She was the only one to call him out when he told Izuku he should have fought Shigaraki and grumbled at him when Bakagou was happy no one else was going to be able to do the internships. YMMV, though. *She’s not a great student. This could be out of laziness or depending way too much on her quirk to get her through school. I think it’s the latter. As I said, she has WAY too much faith in her quirk. *She likes cute stuff, but in the manga, she dresses very casually. **Seems to be fond of no sleeve shirts and knee-high socks. *She worked with the Gadget Hero as an intern, so she may have a SMALL knowledge of robotics. **This feeds into the theory of how she got into UA, which states she found the off button. *She likes caramel candy the best. *She is confirmed to have two parents. Also, a trick I do is that when Canon doesn’t give me enough meat on a character, I look at their astrology! (And blood types for anime as Japanese have fun with the idea that personality can be affected by our blood types.) A lot of authors like to try and make things match for fun.

That’s all I got. I suppose the only thing I can say is that as long as you don’t stray too far from what we see in canon without a reason, write her however you want. Most readers will be forgiving with characters like this.

If anyone else can help, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it!

I really hoped this helped anon. Like I said, I wasn’t sure how to answer this, so there’s a chance I babbled and did everything but answer your question. Thanks for the message!

#toru hakagure #tooru hagakure #bnha #mha #writing for characters when we're given only crumbs #ooc #anon

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