I've been curating character and ship playlists since 2020, and have over 300 playlists with various themes and inspirations. While I'm no expert, I thought I'd share my "process" if anyone was having trouble making playlists of their own. Music centered around a specific character, ship, media, etc. helps me when writing, roleplaying, or drawing. You can easily do this for OC's, cannon characters, or even with a slightly different approach, a "vibe" or "imagine" playlist! These steps are what I use to help me make sure my playlists are accurate, cohesive, and that I actually enjoy listening to them.

1. Establish your "vibe"

When I first started making character playlists, "i was all over her" could fade right into "Run Boy Run". And I'm not kidding. My Luchino x Antonio (IDV) playlist has both of these songs, and I really can't tell you what I was thinking when I added them.

While there isn't anything wrong with this, I personally struggle to enjoy playlists if they jump dramatically from song to song. Think if "Mad World" was followed by "Derezzed" from TRON Legacy. Yeah they might fit the character, but sometimes its good to find a more specific theme to focus on to keep the sound of the playlist more cohesive. This happens a lot when songs trend on TikTok and worm their way into everyone's playlist. See any playlist made in 2020. I'm not innocent in this one, my Tailgate playlist has MARINA songs on it that I still haven't taken out. When these songs come and go, its good to spring clean your playlists every once and awhile.

This isn't a very important step, but I recommend it you care about the audial sound of your playlist as well as how the lyrics fit the character(s). Is your character known for being sad? Maybe don't add 18 slow depressing songs and 2 upbeat pop songs. Try to even it out or change your "vibe" if this is important to you. Sticking to a specific set of genres (especially those with lots of variety) help me with this.

2. Establish your audience

If you're me, you're making playlists mostly for yourself. If you're making a playlist for yourself to listen to, or you don't care about what other people think of your playlists, make them yours. Include your cannon divergent headcannons, project whatever the hell you want on them, go crazy! I usually include on the descriptions that the playlist is self indulgent so that people are less likely to think "Why is there daffo in this BreakBee playlist?" when looking through it.

If you're looking to appeal to what a group of people want, especially for obscure characters and rarepairs, look through tumblr and see what people post about these characters. If you aren't a huge fan of a certain character and are just looking to make a playlist to fill your library, look at how the fangirls characterize them. Do they want to fix them? Make them fixable. Are they unfixable? Make them worse. Do they like this ship because its toxic yaoi? Then really lean into the toxic yaoi.

If you're curating a character or ship playlist for a friend or mutual, especially if a roleplay or AU is involved, make sure you know how they characterize the character(s). I recently made a Hook x Pharma playlist for my friend and used a comic they made as inspiration for their dynamic. If your friend kins that character, really lean into why they kin that character.

3. Establish your focus

Some characters and ships have lots of different arcs, developments, traits, and experiences you can include in your playlist. Sometimes - like with Transformers - there's even countless versions of characters that you could include. If you find curating a playlist that showcases all of these to be daunting (especially if this includes heavy topics), you can always focus on a specific part of the character(s) and their story.

Examples of this could be a Froid x Rung playlist with a focus on their academic rivalry and implied past friendship, a Swerve playlist with a focus on his implied depression, or a DJD playlist with a focus on like... evil justice I guess?

My point is you can always focus on something specific about a character to make your playlist, whether this is for your personal preference or for ease of curating.

4. Spring Cleaning

A great way to keep your playlists cohesive is to occasionally sit down and go through them, removing and adding songs as you see fit. I tend to do this with fandoms that I actively add more playlists for. Spring cleaning can get rid of these songs that just floated into your playlists because they were trending at the time, as well as open room for new focuses and vibes as you develop your music taste and opinions on a character. I also tend to do a lot of spring cleaning in my playlists as I continue through a media and/or its variants.

Of course this is just my process and what works for me. I encourage you to develop your own process for curating playlists, as it can be a fun pastime and an interesting way to share rarepairs or obscure characters as well as OCs.