Do you cast them as actors or other characters from movies/tv/video games/etc? Do you picture friends/family members/people you know irl? Do you come up with an entirely new person based on the character descriptions? Are they just formless blobs? Something else or a combo?

If you want to give examples from your current read or a fav past read, please do!

For me, usually characters are just formless blobs since I’m terrible at visualizing things. Sometimes though I’ll somehow associate a character with a movie, tv, or video game character. I say “somehow” because I don’t usually know why tf my mind decides who to cast LOL for example, I’m reading Starling House by Alix E. Harrow right now and shortly after Arthur first appeared (who is a man who has lived in a strange house all by himself and never leaves or interacts with anyone in town, and is a bit cold and disinterested to the main character when she met him), my brain somehow decided to picture him as Freaky Fred from Courage the Cowardly Dog, which if you haven’t seen this guy, he looks like this:

Which… I don’t think is accurate to Arthur at all but that’s what my brain decided so that’s what he looks like to me now 🤷‍♀️

I also pictured a character from Bunny by Mona Awad as Norman from Gravity Falls briefly before he suddenly became Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil?? Brains are weird lol

Anyway, curious to see how you all visualize your characters!

For my first post on Pagebound, I thought I'd ask about one of the most important parts of reading: the actual process of choosing what to read in the first place! So I ask: when you're deciding on something, what information do you look for before picking it up? Are you someone who can go in blindly without even reading the synopsis? Or do you spend some time checking out the reviews, the author and their other works, similarities between past books you've read, etc.? I'm interested to see where other people land on this!