A, this is a gloriously good topic! I will come back and give a more thought-out answer, but for now all I can say is that I feel I am total crap at realistically portraying anyone younger than say a 23 year old. Even as a child it was very, very difficult for me to identify with other children and I feel that I generally fail to understand them. That said, however I am trying to do a better job at this. Cutty is my first first year...evar. So the things that have been said here...Fantastic! I feel like I've learned things already! Teachers, keep sharing your input! I cannot get enough!

As for the visual, I don't feel like it's that important. We're in the realm of the word in so many ways beyond the power incantation holds for our characters. For me, the model chosen was generally just icing on the cake. A sort of approximation. A way of saying, 'The character might look something like this guy/girl.'

I'm also a fan of variety amongst physical types. To this day, I have yet to find a model that 100% satisfies my needs for my first SS rp character. So I've always sort of looked at the visual part of character creation as an added bonus and not to be taken too seriously. It's not afterall the meat of what we're doing here, it just sort of there for enhancement and enjoyment purposes.

Also, facial essence is clear (for me) in an actor/actress and that's sort of what I'm taking when someone shows me an image of a 21 year old model for their 5th year student. They might have chosen that model for reasons relating to some similarity of essence like the way a person carries themselves, or a tick, or mannerism, the way they move, etc... . I know I've tried to study the way certain actors emote and put that into my writing. I always thought it was so awesome how Helena had to pretend to be Emma's Hermione being Helena's Bellatrix. I found that inspiring (however poorly I may imitate it here).





You said 'poop'!!!