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Well, I voted "I prefer images, but will accept descriptions." I guess that makes me an image person. When I first started roleplaying, I was in middle school. My literacy was crap, my grammar wasn't great, and it's damned hard for me to understand now what I wrote then. So, I used images. However, image people don't usually formulate the character based on the image or anything like that. Unless, like umbraja said, they are a "13 year old, pimple faced otaku." As a literate roleplayer, I have to say that I hate those people with a blinding passion unless they are fantastic writers. Generally, they are not.

When I look for pictures for my characters, I look for something unique or quirky in some way that matches the personality and history of the character I set up. Sometimes, a good picture can tie together a character as a whole and help people envision the character more clearly and realistically. An image can make or break a character. For example, if I get an original character with a great personality and background, but the picture is that god damn androgynous anime character with a red bandanna looking to the left, like the last twenty god damn characters I looked at, I tell them to go get a different picture or go the ******** away.