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Post by pascaline on Nov 23, 2013 13:18:27 GMT -8
I think one of the more interesting aspects of role-playing is how personal it can be, as well as the stigmas attached to making role-playing personal. Even if we make our characters completely different people from ourselves, there's always a piece of us in our character.
For me, I don't always recognize similarities between my characters and me. It took me a while before I realized one of my characters, Bethlehem, didn't like physical contact because at the time I didn't like physical contact. Through playing her, I slowly realized that whenever someone touched my shoulder or tried to touch me - without it being a hug - my first instinct was to pull away from them. I'm not like that anymore (yay, therapy!) but my character still is.
Other similarities I notice is that typically my females have short and/or dark hair like me, and I also love to give them curly hair if I find a good face claim since I also have curly/wavy hair and find it a shame that my own hair type is so uncommon in the animemanga RP world.
So, what sort of similarities do you share with your characters?
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Post by darth vader on Nov 23, 2013 13:47:21 GMT -8
i only play self-inserts
so yeah
eta: in seriousness, i play a wide variety of characters--or tell myself i do--and some of them have nothing of me, or very little. the ones i tend to return to though, or play over and over again, definitely have some overlapping traits that i drew from myself, because playing what i know is easiest/fun for me: violent and/or impoverished childhoods, co-dependent sibling relationships, missing parents or unstable parental relationships, a history of trauma, enjoyment of violence (sometimes accompanied by a healthy fear of their enjoyment of violence, sometimes not), location displacement (two of my favorite to play characters are exiles, one self-imposed, one not), devotion to an ideal/conviction that they are not human.
these don't show up all at once (except for the one time i apped a thalia who had literally all of those...it was terrifying) but most of the characters i repeat play have at least one of those.
on a purely physical level...i dunno. i don't really play a lot of dark-haired fcs, i think, and animanga doesn't lend itself well to brown people lmao. i play mostly girls?? most of my characters are queer to some extent?? i'm reaching lmao
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Post by Pool Boy on Nov 23, 2013 14:30:45 GMT -8
I've tried playing self-inserts and I'm not too fond of it. For any who know, Regina Cosmopolitan on Kohaku was one. Saito told me to do it so I tried it out, but, I never got into her that much? IDK but for me as a writer, I find it more entertaining when there is mystery I can only figure out through writing an Other. It's like I want to escape myself? And usually, in day to day life, my characters affect who I am more than who I am affects my characters.
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Post by pascaline on Nov 23, 2013 17:10:21 GMT -8
I have never played a self-insert. It's one of the reasons I physically cannot L.A.R.P. or table top; I was thrown out of a DnD session because I kept giggling whenever the other players started talking in-character. To me, a character is their own entity, separate though in some way a part of me, and I'm just a medium that tells their story.
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Post by beekeeper on Nov 23, 2013 18:09:03 GMT -8
I noticed that my characters often have issues similar to mine at the core, though they're very different people in very different situations. It's an outlet and gives me something I can relate to and expand on while still being a character entirely separate from myself, and not hitting too close to home that rping loses its sense of escapism for me. I could never play a self-insert, it would be an incredibly boring, passive, unplottable character lemme tell you. And there are no fcs that look like me lol.
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Post by GARDEN on Nov 23, 2013 18:10:26 GMT -8
i have a character right now that is basically a lot of the things i hate and fear in myself x10. i made her specifically with that in mind because i was having a rough time and wanted someway to cope with it. a lot of my characters do this, though, especially ones i'm very attached to. they have a trait that is very similar to me but often exaggerated. i even take traits from friends and put them into characters.
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Post by RIAZEY on Nov 23, 2013 19:07:40 GMT -8
Pretty much all of my characters have a piece of me in them. So it makes me wonder why the easiest type of character for me to play is usually a friendly, rough acting guy who doesn't let people close, is really sarcastic, has some kind of connection or previous connection with the dark side - seriously, you have no idea how many of my characters are people just trying to get away from their past - but then is also someone who protects the people he trusts with a fierce passion. Oh and they are usually virgins. Because I'm not like that, at all. I don't even...
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Nov 23, 2013 21:50:46 GMT -8
There's more than enough of me in a character, usually in the form of a theme or an experience with some of the details substituted for something else. It's not something I plan at the start. It comes out during my brainstorming process of a character (ie. Cyrus whose creation is inspired by a Digimon character then I ended up empathizing with him and was able to flesh him out through my own experience.) Having a personal connection with my chars is quite important to me so I always have a "me" in them.
I've also mentioned already in some other threads that I include a lot of family themes. It's not something unique but I consider it to be my personal aspect.
If I have to cite out specific examples, there's Noah, a young bishop from a theocratic nation but despite his religious position, he's hardly the picture of a saint. He's sarcastic, arrogant, and demeaning, and frequently mentally curses God for every trivial incident in his life, usually for comical purposes. While he might not be the spiritual successor of Mother Teresa, he has genuine concern for society and his people. You could say that he's more into logic than love. Noah's two motto also sums up his goals: 1) to do the world some damn good, and 2) to give this kind of world a worthwhile God.
Noah was my interpretation of "radical" religion, you know, the one you commonly see played out in fantasy-themed video games. I grew up in a Catholic school so I had these thoughts about God and people. I didn't share Noah's sentiments of course. I simply entertained some thoughts in my head and pulled them in an extreme direction. It's not really an attack on God or religion or anything. I used the concept or the idea of it as means of delivering a thought-provoking message that which I will not mention.
Noah and I don't really have the same personality at all but we both share a passion for goodness. Noah's still an extreme case though but I can still see his point of view after years since I made him.
And I'm going to just throw out my PRE Bugsy from Pokemon who I created around my experience with the bird in the chapel aka that traumatizing moment of my life where I lost my innocence. But Bugsy turned out to be more exciting than me aka he became potentially batshit.
I could go on for all my other characters. I very rarely include my own personality traits into my character because I don't really know myself that well lol. And I don't really like thinking about that.
I REALLY want to play a self-insert someday though. I know it sounds contradictory but to me, self-insert is the ultimate escapism. You can be right and wrong in the name of literature and there won't be consequences about it like in real life. Everything will work out and it would be beautiful. I know it sounds pathetic but it's fun. I also can imagine myself just shouting and screaming around and it would indeed be beautiful.
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Post by darth vader on Nov 23, 2013 22:15:03 GMT -8
i wrote like 37k words of a ridic self insert in my obscurest fandom when i was in middle school...my dream is to one day bring her to the Big Screen
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Post by Zozma on Nov 23, 2013 23:18:04 GMT -8
I think there is a tiny piece of me in every one of my characters. Some of them are deeper, like the ones who have anxiety issues or are asexual. Then there are ones who are intelligent but reclusive, the ones who are super judgmental and dislike their peers (me when I was a teenager), etc. And then there are the ones with just tiny parts of me, like one of them liking peach flavored anything. I also pick apart traits from my friends and family and inject them into my characters, too.
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A seadog looking for crewmates
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Post by Elena on Nov 24, 2013 3:09:36 GMT -8
There is something of me in each character, but not so much. They are, still, independent characters who react totally different than me.
Like Marina, I am ambitious, stubborn and willing to learn anything new. I'm friendly and peaceful, too!
Like Andrea, I am loyal and reliable, keeping my promises, knowing how to party in moderation and with talent at foreign languages.
I think I share with Maribel the love for songs and dances, a practical business spirit and perhaps a bit of her need for attention (but only a bit). Also the fact that both of us can't have children and we'd "adopt" anybody around us...
Like Sol and Chago, there is no challenge I won’t take (actually a RPG in English was also such a challenge for me), I am “thinking in songs” like them and I like Spanish, Mexican and South-American music (and not only – unfortunately, without being able to sing it/ play it). I have the same desire to win against any obstacles life may get in my way and succeed through my own forces, to leave something behind me, my name on something (even if this is likely to be only some published papers and some successfully implemented projects).
With Raoul I share only the friendliness part - I also give sound advice, I like teaching the youngsters and I might save my friends in certain situations.
Like Thierry (or, well, Leftheris) I am ready to convert into dance all the bad energy of my life... (But I can see Chago or Sol doing the same thing... or even Andrea).
Like Sigurd, I am reasonably educated, stubborn, quick learning and liking parties.
Like Allan, I am loyal, trustworthy and I like challenge and less taken paths in all fields.
Like Emily, my parents are divorced, and I am ambitious and stubborn.
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Post by naomi on Jan 1, 2014 16:53:18 GMT -8
Depending on my character, there can be anything from just a teeny, tiny bit of me in him, or to the point where he's nearly identical in a sense. It all depends on what I feel like playing and of course, the setting of the game. I think all of my characters share some sort of trait with me though, so there's some sort of connection between myself and him.
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Post by ★SIRIUS on Jan 9, 2014 14:58:27 GMT -8
why don't you come rp with me and find out.
srsly half the time i don't even realise i do it until someone i'm rping with points it out to me
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MOTHER OF THE MAGICAL GIRLS
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Post by SIFR on Jan 9, 2014 20:37:35 GMT -8
It depends on the character. I usually draw inspiration from the people around me though; for instance, my most recent main character is based off a very old character of mine, and also draws heavy inspiration from my boyfriend.
Funny how those things work out.
So yeah I guess you could say that my characters do have a part of me in them. They at least have a little bit of the things that influence me.
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Post by Siren on Apr 10, 2014 13:48:02 GMT -8
I have to admit that there's some parts of me in my characters, and I think it's perfectly natural. But, there's a fine line between the characters and their role players. I like to think of them as separate entities rather than extended branches of myself, and so while sharing a quirk or personality trait with one of my characters is no big deal, the thought of making a self-insert makes me somewhat uncomfortable. It's like you're trying to flatten yourself out, and that's just... idk, it's just really bizarre to me, and I can't really wrap my head around it. So, I try to make my characters as distant from me and each other as possible. After all, that's what role playing's about, right? It's about creating vivid stories and plots and escaping from the monotony of real life. Well, that's how it is for me, anyways. The biggest similarity that I've found with my characters is that 99% of my female characters tend to be aromantic, asexual, or even both. As someone who's never been particularly into romance and all that jazz, I guess it influenced my characters to a certain degree?
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