MOTHER OF THE MAGICAL GIRLS
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Post by SIFR on Oct 21, 2013 13:15:19 GMT -8
I saw someone bring up this subject in the RP Confessions thread, and I agree; this should be discussed. Mental Illnesses are something that one will encounter in real life; this is true. However, how do you feel about mental illness in a roleplay scenario? Where is it appropriate? Do you fear that you'll be accused of making an inaccurate portrayal? Do you yourself roleplay or have roleplayed a character with a mental illness?
My two cents:
I think that if you look deep down at every single one of my characters, they have something that a psychologist would raise an eyebrow at. Some are more open than others; for instance, I've had characters who could technically be classified as ADHD, and I've had characters who are nothing short of psychopaths. My personal opinion is that everyone has a tick that could get them placed in the 'mental illness' category, but I'd like to hear your opinions.
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Post by Pool Boy on Oct 21, 2013 14:28:14 GMT -8
For me, mental illnesses are fine so long as a character does not wholly represent their mental illness. Looking at pop culture and american cartoons, its not uncommon for characters to exhibit behaviors a psychologist would raise an eyebrow at. Even if we begin with these characters apped without admitting they have mental health issue. Growing up, the zany characters of winnie the pooh, spongebob squarepants, rugrats, and hey arnold all have influenced me as a writer. But lets face it: eeyore has depression, mr. crabs has covetous psychopathy, chuckie finster has anxiety and paranoia, and helga pataki is bipolar. I think this article on disney characters is neat to sit on.Of course, after television there are writing movements that strive for realism: ernest hemingway being the one to pop into my head most readily. I think there are a lot of writers striving for realistic portrayals. But I know I have a more cartoonish writing style. Even when I write on RL rp sites, my friends tell me my characters still feel like cartoons and I think its because I see my character as satires. Now, onto the questions... How do you feel about mental illness in a roleplay scenario?It depends on the maturity of the writer, and whether they consider their character realistic. I believe anyone who has never experienced the mental disorder they are writing about could never accurately portray it. As long as they accept that, then to me, they are mature. I think the same logic also goes for men writing women characters and women writing men characters. To understand what it is like to be raised as a man is probably beyond my imagination. (I still try to write them though.) Where is it appropriate?I feel that 'undiagnosed' mental disorders are so common in characters that it is simply always appropriate. It's nearly a part of the animated genre. As far as diagnosed mental health issues go - those are a touchy subject. Do you fear that you'll be accused of making an inaccurate portrayal?I only write characters with mental health issues that I can sympathize with. I know I don't understand bipolar disorder or sociopathy, so I avoid them. I've always though multiple-personalities would be fun to write, but because its one of the most misunderstood ones out there (thanks to that movie sybil) I would probably use supernatural reasons for a person to have more than one persona and avoid the mental health correctness. Do you yourself roleplay or have roleplayed a character with a mental illness?I play two. Johnny is a sixteen year old based off of my neighbor who has ADHD and a big personality. He's also based off of the 80s hardcore punk music scene. (His nickname is Junk.) He's the only character I have diagnosed with mental health issues, and he's also a satire too in a lot of respects. He's one of my oldest character, and when I first wrote him, he was left undiagnosed, but eventually it got to the point where it was just so evident he had problems focusing and behaving that the illness came to describe his character. The other is Isaac Kirsch, who is mildly neurotic. He gets stressed out about work easily and he has ulcer problems. His career is high stress though, and he went through rigorous academics to become a harvard lawyer despite a middle class background. He has panic attacks when bad things happen, which I can relate to from my own experiences with school. EDIT: I also want to add that I do think that mental health disorders areromanticized for the sake of tv and other forms of entertainment. I can't really say if its a good thing or a bad thing for society. Mental health issues are such a stigma - but of course the reality of having one is not cool. I'm looking at chars like House M.D. and others who are portrayed as geniuses.
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Post by darth vader on Oct 21, 2013 20:44:47 GMT -8
I stole electric's template lol. I will preface this by saying that I have been diagnosed with more mental illnesses than you can shake a stick at, and I'm talking the Big Stuff, not just anxiety and depression and so on that most people might have experience with or understanding of, but personality disorders, bipolar, PTSD, comorbidity, therapists giving and slapping me with a general hands-up "you just have something wrong with you." Visual and auditory hallucinations, black outs, mania, disordered thinking and actions, etc, I've been there and done that, am still there to an extent. I've been in and out of so much therapy and studies and done so much research I could probably qualify for at least an undergraduate degree in psychology, smh. So I feel pretty qualified in talking about mental illness especially in roleplay and if I come off as such when I answer my questions, that's why.
How do you feel about mental illness in a roleplay scenario? To a certain extent, I don't care. As long as people do their research, and if they're a person without a mental illness (or a person with a mental illness writing about one they don't have) they acknowledge that they can't really understand it, I have no problems. A mental illness as part of a fully fleshed-out character wouldn't be "problematic" to me. It would just be part of writing a good character.
However I often see characters who are written so that their mental illness is a crutch or a way of being a lazy writer instead. Like listing "bipolar" as a character personality trait--that makes as much sense to me as listing "broken arm" as a personality trait. Is the character prone to being aggressive and brash because they're used to people being rude to them because they are bipolar, so they're in your face about it preemptively? That would make more sense to me. People with mental illnesses are just people, and they shape and define themselves by and against that illness like everyone does with their experiences. And they also have traits completely unrelated to that illness. They aren't stereotypes or caricatures.
Or people who write about characters with mental illness as "issues" characters. They might have a very technically accurate depiction, but it feels flat and lifeless and makes my hackles stand up. I dislike the notion that people can be reduced to just their trauma or struggles or illnesses, and issues characters who seem to just exist so their writer can write about "a bipolar girl" rather than "a girl with bipolar" makes me...uncomfortable.
I also really think people should carefully research a mental illness if they don't have it and plan on writing about it instead of relying on the common perception of that illness that exists and thinking that they can base their characterization off of that. Again, with bipolar as an expample: bipolar isn't rapid mood swings from minute to minute, being sad one moment and overjoyed the next. Bipolar periods of alternating mania and depression last days at the very least, if not weeks or even months, and mania is a lot more than being "very happy". If you're going to write about something, you have the responsibility to be true to it. And if you aren't true and someone calls you out on it, you don't have much room to complain I feel.
Where is it appropriate? Where it fits the character and the setting? I have characters with mental illnesses that I scale the severity of down or up according to the RPs I play them in and whether they would fit or not. I have characters who are so severely mentally ill I would never dream of playing them in a light-hearted high school romance fluff RP. It all depends.
If the way the mental illness is being portrayed as reeks of fetish, I would also categorize that as inappropriate.
I guess in the end, the most important question is "is it necessary?" Is it necessary to the character. Am I doing justice to both the character and the illness. Or am I just trying to incorporate this as a way to make my character cool or rely on common ideas of the mental illness as shorthand for actually developing my character beyond a stereotype. If you can answer those questions correctly, you're probably being appropriate.
Do you fear that you'll be accused of making an inaccurate portrayal? Like electric, I only really roleplay characters with my issues, or issues that are based off mine and that I thus have a firm grasp on. I wouldn't dream of playing someone with DID or an eating disorder for that reason. I would be too worried constantly that I was messing up or being unfair to people who really suffer from those diseases. When I use my own issues to flesh out chars though, I feel so comfortable with it that I don't mind.
Do you yourself roleplay or have roleplayed a character with a mental illness? Most of the characters I have, and continue to play on a regular basis/don't lose interest in have a mental problem of some kind or another. I've struggled with mental illness for so long (over half my life at this point) that it feels stranger to me to write a character with no mental problems and I often end up dropping them because I'm like LMAO IDK HOW TO HANDLE YOU whats it like 2 be normal idk. I'll just touch on the most crucial ones, I guess.
The character I play most is Thalia de Luca. In all her incarnations she has some kind of survivor's guilt due to past experiences that always happen before the current timeframe of the RP, black and white disordered thinking, unstable self image, martyr complex/vague death wish, and violent tendencies (and an intense fear of those violent tendencies, and what she can become as a result of them.) I've played her in high school RPs where those were issues I obviously dialed down, and in war RPs where I amped them up to level 10 and piled on PTSD, depression, etc as well. Just because I'm an asshole to her.
The most extreme two characters in terms of mental illness I've ever played are Calliope and Zeyn. Calliope is a girl who was raised by the worst dad imaginable and is a murderer with a phobia of men and complete emptiness of self. She projects the facade of the beautiful woman-monster in order to conceal the fact that she emotionally stopped developing somewhere around nine years old, and is probably a sociopath. Her backstory is rife with sexual and physical abuse, which is something I'd consider on the same lines of "is it necessary? Why am I writing this?" when it comes to incorporating such themes into a character's background. I mention this especially because to be honest, I regret a lot of Calliope. I didn't write her with the intent of becoming exploitative--I wanted to write about the victim of a monster becoming a monster herself, but I'm not sure to this day how well I succeeded or not.
Zeyn is a woman who suffers from auditory and visual hallucinations, as well as black-outs and forgetting who she is. In most verses I play, I would hesitate to label her as "mentally ill" because I most often RP her in magical settings where her symptoms are the result of her void magic turning on her and devouring her slowly. In the current verse I'm RPing her as though, she's deteriorating as the result of years of being raised to put herself first and prize power above everything else colliding with the fact that she fell in love with the most idealistic, disgustingly sacrificial martyr dolt of all time, as well as the fact that she's on the front lines of a war that can't possibly be won. So she's mentally ill in SNK verse.
Wow this got away from me.
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Oct 22, 2013 4:28:51 GMT -8
You'd never see me write anything related to mental illnesses - at leas the giving, extreme signs that involve, say, insanity. I'm saying this because I do believe everyone is mentally ill in some way. It's either manageable or usually just goes undiagnosed, or both. My reason for it is simple: it's not my niche.
I'm more inclined to favor the people of our day-to-day lives who do have issues on their own (like anyone else!) but generally live average lives. No abusive parents, no drug addiction, no murdering, no manipulating, no real evil anywhere in sight. They have a more-or-less good upbringing, stable financial status, and are pretty much...good. But no matter how good a person might be, they are imperfect and that's the type of characters I often bring.
I can relate to this. There are already many writers out there who write and do better at writing topics of mental illnesses. A part of my writing is dedicated to myself, to represent those who might be scorned for our easygoing lives and shallow emotions. No one really ever told me that but it's always what I end up telling myself. I have no right to be mad at others or to be sad about my own problems because many people have worse shit to deal with.
I don't think of this as some sort of sob-story perspective; I'd hate it if someone did. Another reason why I wouldn't play mentally-ill characters is because I hate playing the victim. I'm a fighter at heart. When the psychiatrist told me with a sad, pitiful look that I had a bipolar disorder, I glared at her that pretty much had "fuck you" written all over it. I refused medicines, refused doing any of that diary-writing thing. I don't need help - not that way. I'm stubborn and I believe if people deal with "problem" people like me with honest investment and not some sort of routine written by science, then love will goddamn conquer all. If I really am bipolar, then I'm hell going to fight it. When my psychiatrist offered to write an appeal to my former school to accept me back, reasoning my condition had affected my performance, I stomped my foot and refused. Bipolar or not, I will never use it as an excuse for what I did. For the same reason, I don't really enjoy seeing victimized chars who are traumatized from past events. I get fired up in a good way. I want to be by their side and flash them the epic shining pair of eyes of hope.
In a literary level, I don't really enjoy the usual development of victim-turning-to-perpetrator. To me, there is much more impact when there's this average dude who's always been really nice and had his own share of shit one day messed up and hurt someone really bad. It's the common folks who usually end up getting stuck in the middle of two opposite sides and realizing that they can be both the victim and the perpetrator. They have no particularly strong trauma to blame. Just their actions and themselves.
But this sums up my strongest feeling about mentally-ill chars.
Besides my personal account, I don't really have anything against the issue of mental illnesses. I wouldn't RP it, but if I were to make a documentary film, a nonfiction story, or something that's not related to RP and more of the lives of actual people, then I'd definitely do it. I guess I'll just never try to represent these kind of taboo over the Internet but I wouldn't hesitate to tackle them in real life with real people with real accounts.
Oh, and I did try playing a char with mental illness once. Dropped that back story instantly. I was that bad at it.
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Post by GARDEN on Oct 22, 2013 7:36:22 GMT -8
I absolutely adore mental illnesses because they are one of the most fascinating things ever to me. I've actually considered psychology as a major because they are something I want to learn about so much. The same with the way people work and tick, too. That being said, I am super, super picky when others play mental illnesses because they are such a touchy area. You don't add a mental illness to your character to make them more "kawaii" or "badass". I've seen someone do this, where their character was cutting themselves for absolutely no reason, and it was disgusting. They obviously knew nothing about it and were just doing it to make their character more cute and/or pitiful. People who do that are the worst.
I think mental illness can fit into any role play because mental illness is every where. It is a real life thing that exists for people on a day to day basis. But it comes down to how you play it. I think it's fine to role play a mental illness you have no personal connection to but the thing is, you need to research. When I role play any mental illness I'm not familiar with, I look up so much. I look at symptoms, medication, medication side effects, and then I try to find excerpts from people who are actually afflicted with the disorder so I can really understand it and how my character would be affected by it.
I'm not even afraid of being told I'm doing an inaccurate portrayal of something. In fact, if I am, I want to be told that so I can improve my character and make them more realistic. Like Electric, I think my characters are satires, especially of myself, but they are also individuals and I want them to be something you can relate to and understand. Going with that, I don't think a mental illness is something to make light of. Even something as common as ADHD shouldn't be done just to make your character fun. I have ADHD and it's not just about having a short attention span. I fidget constantly because I always want to be moving (and yes, people notice this) but I am so easily overwhelmed by things, it's sad. I can't stand super busy, noisy places because I want to focus on everything that I just freak out. And then in school, it was especially awful. Imagine knowing you need to do a big project that counts for 50% of your grade and you can't. You honest to god cannot even though you want to and know you need to. But whenever you try and make yourself sit down to do this project, this freaking brick wall pops up out of no where and you just hit it face first and you can't get around it. That's just a part of what ADHD is. And anyone who thinks that ADHD is only a short attention span and inability to sit still is no better than someone who thinks bipolar disorder is a day to day mood swing.
I think the most important thing, if you want to role play a mental illness, is research. And not just a quick look at wikipedia, but actual research. Another thing is you shouldn't base your character off a disorder. Your character shouldn't revolve around what's wrong with them to the point that becomes the only thing they are. Like someone said above me, if you seriously think listing "bipolar" is a personality trait, then chances are you don't have a character. You just have someone with a disorder but with no substance.
I had an old character who had bipolar personality disorder. She was very much in love with her boyfriend, but her disorder made it incredibly hard to keep things sane with him. When she was in a manic stage, she'd escalate things. She would cheat on him if he made her upset because she wasn't thinking. Hell, she even bought a plane ticket from Germany to America to be with him because she wasn't thinking. I focused more on the manic side of bipolar disorder with her, which is totally okay because bipolar disorder can favor depression or mania. I know that because members of my family have been afflicted with it.
I had another character who created an alter ego for herself. She had such a horrible home life that she created the identity of a superhero because it was her only way of escaping it. Her brother created the identity of a super villain because they use to play games together that involved them being superhero and super villain. And as far as they knew anymore, they were those people. When she was forced to "unmask", she became angry, sullen, nervous, and depressed.
I basically think the most important thing you can do is research and show you are making a character that is more than just a disorder.
A quick ending note and I guess fun fact: A sociopath is not actually a mental illness by itself, but rather a classification of them. This includes antisocial personality disorder or a general disregard for the thoughts and feelings of others.
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Post by habs on Oct 23, 2013 4:44:39 GMT -8
All you guys are so verbose it's crazy
I didn't read everything because I'm a lazy buttmunch but I agree with a lot of what y'all are saying. I hate it when I see a character given schizophrenia to "spice them up" and yet they don't even know what schizophrenia is (when the character actually has multiple personality disorder. I don't get how this gets mixed up so badly??)
I've had characters with (outright) mental illnesses but I guess I'm always just so afraid to use those characters because
1) The aforementioned only giving them an illness to make them more "interesting." It's romanticizing an illness and that's gross. My characters obviously aren't gratuitously given a mental illness, it's just something they have like actual people but I feel like with all the stupid mary sues with mental disorders that my character/me won't be taken seriously.
2) I don't know anything about mental illnesses. I'm very very particular about researching things behind my roleplaying and even my own personal writing. I want everything to be exactly right. That's why I can't write detective/cop stories because I don't know anything about ACTUALLY being a police officer, even if those are fun and popular character types.
Again I'm not sure what has been said cuz I'm lazy/don't have time to read rn/cannot concentrate that much (lol) but I just wanted to add my two cents in idek. It mostly just bugs me SO MUCH when people don't do their research because I think that's super insulting. Like what Tsun said, writing about "a bipolar girl" versus "a girl with bipolar disorder." The person is more than their illness and so is the character. Until people realize that, they won't be able to portray the illness realistically.
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Oct 23, 2013 5:36:13 GMT -8
All you guys are so verbose it's crazy In GS, I've noticed people either post with a sentence or two, or with a freaking brick wall of text. And don't worry, I didn't read what people said until I was writing halfway through my post. And I only decided to read because I didn't want to repeat points made and it's a bad habit anywayfor the record, I've read everything now. Someone give me a medal.
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Post by BIG FUCKBOI GAMBINO on Oct 24, 2013 0:57:15 GMT -8
Wow this got away from me.
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