Re: Monster Girl Island OOC chat
For awesome characters, I actually don't believe that backgrounds can actually make or break them. Whether or not your character is awesome is a given when you've got that character's personality ironed out, and they've had plenty of time to do their thing in the world they occupy. Backgrounds, I think should come after you've made the idea of the character, as well as their personality. It's more or less describing that character's life, giving the reader of the character a better understanding of the character, rather than helping you(the author of the character) another opportunity to continue construction of your character.
That's not to say ideas won't pop up during the explanation of the background, but I think that your character should already be fairly solid before their stories are ever taken into consideration. And what a good deal of people usually don't take into consideration is whether or not someone other than yourself might find the character appealing, or how well your character might act with others.