How do you play beauty?

As a text-based game where being good-looking always gives me a certain twinge of being twinkish, beauty is something I've struggled with. Am I making a whore if I make my character good-looking? Where do I draw the line - mentioning figure, mentioning features, mentioning body parts? How should I react to other people who have good-looking characters?

I've decided to try to play someone beautiful since Atranti was deleted, so feed me answers.

FEED ME.

In my opinion, it's solely a matter of personal preference. For example, I don't believe it's inappropriate to describe beauty, as you yourself perceive it. I tend not to include in my descriptions (of characters, or anything I design) the reactions of those who might be viewing them. Someone's heart doesn't necessarily flutter or their breath catch in their throat when they see Amarysse, nor do I assume they're staring at her like a particularly tender piece of meat. I might make vague allusions to the general body type of a character I create (slender, curvaceous, robust, etc.), but I do not describe anything as "perky," "delectable," "gravity-defying," or "pulchritudinous." "Pert" might be applied to a nose, or a chin perhaps, but I couldn't comfortably use it elsewhere. I also avoid referring to specifically sexual anatomy or implications thereof.

So far as reacting to someone who plays a beautiful character is concerned... It's simply role-play. Is your character attracted to someone who looks this way, or would he/she find them aesthetically (if not sexually) appealing? There are a multitude of ways to describe someone who is beautiful without actually saying, "She is a graceful elfen and is mind-numbingly gorgeous. Those who gaze upon her cannot help but be stunned by how fantastically alluring she is." If I'm playing a character I envision as being attractive, I try to think of one or two unique features (eyes, perhaps, or skin tone) that will stand out in the description without going down a laundry list of facial features and bits of anatomy, because, frankly, that's fairly tiresome to read. If others agree with my assessment and find him/her attractive, so much the better. If not, well, Lusternia is a living world, and it's a bit silly to think that my vision of beauty applies equally to everyone.

I hope that helps!

While Charisma isn't the same as physical beauty, it is something of an indicator. If you play a race, class, etc. that has a high effective charisma, you should not feel unjustified in playing a beautiful character. If you play someone with a low charisma, you can still get away with being beautiful by simply having the attitude IC that what you are is beautiful and everyone else is just wrong to not see it. Either way, as Amarysse says, just describe the character in a factual depiction, don't draw conclusions. Don't describe beauty, describe a person who happens to be beautiful by some standard.

If Charisma is an indication, all Tae'Dae are dead sexy *sagenod*

I think Isildur explained it a bit better though: "I'm going to do pretty much anything a friggin' bear tells me to do".

But yeah, what they said, use non-loaded, non-biased, but descriptive adjectives. Gives you a chance to show off your well-endowed...vocabulary.

Gwylifar has it pretty spot-on. If I read a description that starts with, "and is incredibly beautiful" I will not want to read on, and rarely do.

Aison doesn't think furless people are beautiful... Loboshigaru, Aslaran, Tae'Dae, even Trill, she finds to be gorgeous. Humans, Merians, Lucidians, she thinks are on the wrong side of the tracks.

So it's important to make your description open to that sort of interpretation. Aison admires Elfen and Faelings, and she thinks they can be rather poised and graceful, but overall she finds the majority of them vain, ugly creatures whose bodies are too thin and heads are too big and filled with nonsense.

It's bad to write a description describing your character in a constant state of happiness/sadness/whatever, as well. "She's an ordinary human and is smiling happily at her surroundings..." well, she won't be smiling as soon as she's about to die, and she's certainly not going to smile when she's heard that the Avatars have died. Writing, "When she smiles, her teeth are small and pearly white" is okay... that just gives room for the imagination. Smiling and actions are meant to be expressed in emotes, not your description.

Also, try to avoid using the word "beautiful". As hard as it might sound, it'll make your description that much better.

Keep in mind that 99.1% of the population describes themselves as 'beautiful'. You may find it more of a challenge, more unique, and more fun if you play a character who is not beautiful. Aison could easily pass as a boy if she bothered to chop off her hair, and even then she wouldn't be a very handsome one. It seems like a hassle to be beautiful, because it feels like you have to be graceful and elegant and well behaved all the time .

Just don't even explicitly mention boobs, that's all it takes not to be slutty.

On the other hand, the thing that is rather peculiar about making beautiful descriptions is that you can describe something that would normally be seen as ugly in such a beautiful tone that it seems quite the opposite. Conversely, you can describe traits that are normally considered to be perfect with a rather nasty undertone, which is what I've done with Ashai. It's more about tone and diction than anything.

Twinkish?
I suppose you just have a different idea of how to go about it.
Often times people assume that curves, big breasts, and painted fingernails equates to beauty.
There is a big difference between being a smutty babe who knows how to strut and whimsically entrancing, which I assume in a fantasy setting such as Lusternia you would want to encapsule more.

Its far easier to be slutty, than it is to be wholesome.

For instance, I am wholesomely beautiful.

Tae'dae charisma is for the cute/cuddliness of the thing. You know, like how cute a baby is with a chef costume.

A good example would be Lisaera.

I think for making your character physically beautiful less really is more. Just give someone a taste of what you think your character looks like. You could say your character's body has curves. One person will see your character as full figured, another might see you really thin, with curves. A slender waist might mean the character is thin, but I've known people who are quite big, but have a slender waist in comparison.

Physical beauty is really nothing though. People will see your as beautiful or ugly just based on your attitude. Even when I know how someone looks, I'll perceive them differently, because I put more stock into personality than I do in physical beauty.

I don't even really get into my waist or any of that stuff, at all.
Height and physique is pretty much it for me.

Then again I am playing a 4 foot, flatchested little girl so those things are insignificant.