I once created a character for a homebrew D&D game that was, an changeling, tiefling, and aasimar rogue, and yes it is as bad as it sounds.
Sincerely, T.K Paradox

To tell the truth, I don't really have any, lol. I'm not a very emotional person, so my characters often reflect that. My stories don't really explore deep emotional topics or even psychological ones. I'm strive more for the well put together types, you know, the badass thriller heroes, or in the case of fantasy, epic leaders of strength and honor, or villains of a similarly put togetherness.

I think it's for these reasons I've never written any characters that I would cringe about now, but who knows?

[Account Deleted]

I have a lot of female characters from back in middle school/early highschool who fit the "wow I'm so emo but I'm also insane but pretty hot 😍" archetype. Gave them all to my older brother who writes...mature fiction to adapt however he likes. 

MarytheGorgon Wrote: I have a lot of female characters from back in middle school/early highschool who fit the "wow I'm so emo but I'm also insane but pretty hot 😍" archetype. Gave them all to my older brother who writes...mature fiction to adapt however he likes.

Looool!!


Is he making any money with that? I hear it's pretty lucrative, actually.

I once wrote a character who essentially had god-mode powers with the sensibilities of a whiny kid.
Except it wasn't exploring any interesting dynamics, like what if an angsty teen had godlike powers... He was just obnoxious and extremely OP  

Thankfully, that story is now buried where it will never again see the light of day...

Although I never wrote him out, I came up with a character that inspired a pokemon fanfic of mine. Basically he was an awful self insert, with my real name, as well as would use all my favorite pokemon. He wasn't just the champion of a single region, no, old me had to go the extra mile. He was the world champion, responsible for defeating every single champion from every region. 

Strangely enough as I got older and my writing and story telling improved, so did the character. Before he was this unstoppable, ultra cool pokemon master badass, but now he's more of a case study about the effects that becoming famous can do to a person as well as the mental toll and trauma he received during his adventures. For instance, an interesting quirk I gave him was that he would only carry around five pokemon instead of the standard six because he's so awesome and cool that he doesn't need a full team to destroy his oppenents. Now he goes with one less pokemon because one of his pokemon died during a team plasma fight which then made him vow to never use a sixth pokemon again to carry his partners memory. 

So although I'm disappointed in how he started, I see him as a sort of memento to how far I came with character creation and development.

When I first started writing long fiction I was about 14, and I made a number of adult characters with 14 year old mindsets that seem laughably cringey now.  Also these adults elected the sheltered, idealistic 16 yr old protagonist as their leader.
 

I frankly speaking can't recall even a single character I ever created that would make me cringe.

They all had roles they played within the framework of the stories they were cast in.
The stories...might have been a bit cringe here and there, but the characters did their best to play their parts, like good actors.

Almost all of them have made me cringe, but that's because I look at my old writing and gasp in horror. 

When I was a kid, I made all kinds of stories, mostly based off of tv shows and video games I had consumed at the time. So, I basically just made a bunch of self-insert fanfics for Teen Titans Go and Minecraft. My best/worst must have been when I threw myself into Mario Galaxy, gaining all of his powers, and then somehow also becoming Sonic in Sonic and the Secret Rings, gaining his speed and also becoming a genie. I was a weirdo of a kid lmao.

When I was pretty little, around elementary age, I created a character based on the Greek goddess Athena, bearing, of course, the same name (what else am I supposed to name her?). She basically was the definition of an emo, OP protagonist who could beat any villain I threw at her. Oh, and she was also popular and smart and ended up ruling the world despite the entire world being set with medieval technology. As I grew older, though, I modified her character more and more until she was completely different than my initial idea, adding a lot more flaws. She was still a warrior and strategist, but her conquests were limited to a region, a large one, but definitely not the whole world. Instead of being an altruistic, wise leader she was a machiavellian, efficient leader, bordering on tyranny. Her name also changed, and she was no longer the main character for all my stories.

When I look at my very old drawings of her now, I kinda just cringe and wonder what my brain was thinking to conjure up such a character.

[Account Deleted]

The worst one was called "Evan Deadshot"

God.

He was a suit-wearing assassin with one eye, wearing cool guy sunglasses.

He was also a master submission artist(?) 

I was a weird kid.

I don't shame myself. It's all part of the process. Takes a lot of bad writing to get to the good stuff. Keep grinding, y'all!

It was Aegir Whitefang for me. A western type character that wears a katana.

Oh my god, I used such chuuni names for my characters when I was in Junior High School. And such cringy dialogues. Just cool mc coolsname.

No heft in the dialogues, no beauty in the flow of the dialogues, no imagery.

Oh my god. such pain in my soul. the cringe when I read my old works.

Everyone I wrote about more than 10 minutes ago. 

Haust Wrote: Everyone I wrote about more than 10 minutes ago.

Nice.

I don't consider my early works or characters to be "cringe", because all of it is part of growing and developing the necessary creativity that's important for later works.
Plus (and this might just be me) I can read my older works and still feel the passion behind them. 

I have no regrets about anything I've written except for the frustration I occasionally feel when I realize in hindsight "man, I could have told this so much better if I'd written the scene this way."

You can walk and run now, but not too long ago you were talking stumbling little baby steps. Don't deny where you came from simply because of where you're at now.

In Sophomore year of high school I wrote about these edgy vampires, yep… I think the first 6 words provided enough context already.