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Post by Lady Kara on Dec 20, 2015 18:39:17 GMT -5
As I mentioned previously in comments in the shoutbox, something that I've often thought on is how many times people (whether writers of any kind or RPers) tend to have horrible things happen to their characters or shit that's happened in the past. Whether it's emotional things (PTSD, mental/verbal abuse, and the like) or physical (old wounds, getting beat up, serious health issues, etc.). A lot of the time it does certainly lend well to character development and towards the plots of certain stories (if I ever get around to working out an RP-able version of "Embers of Illiaster", there's a lot going on with that involving adults suffering from PTSD and coping with a dark past of being abused as kids/teens). But then there are those times that we just simply kind of enjoy putting our characters through lots of shit on a regular basis. Examples of my own: how many times I have had characters get hurt or ill, get depressed, or have rotten luck (like during a battle). Good thing that you guys don't see the stuff I do to my characters over on Gaia Online... I'm so mean. XP
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Post by Silumas on Dec 20, 2015 19:50:23 GMT -5
Well, a good recent example is the death of Flidais, the only friend of my character Treasach from the Ucalegon story.
All of my characters tend to have terrible tragedies happen to them, both in the past and within game. A while back in a Game of Thrones alternate universe thing I had a character that was suffering from the madness inherent to the Targaryen bloodline. He was slowly losing his mind, becoming more and more delusional to the point he was seeing his long dead sisters from when he was younger. They encouraged him to do more and more evil things to the point of killing the few friends he had and eventually tempting him to slay his lover.
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Post by ch00beh on Dec 20, 2015 20:04:08 GMT -5
Rie ate an old sandwich once and it was kinda dry and gross.
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Dec 21, 2015 5:10:07 GMT -5
In Yoshi's history alone, he has:
Died twice Had the love of his life die (twice I think? Maybe more, and I'm pretty sure that one time he had to kill Vincent, but I might be getting that the wrong way around) Been tentatively in-and-out of relationships with Hector (platonic. mostly) Gone completely grimdark and ended up torturing and old enemy Had his home completely destroyed Gone through several shocking revelations regarding his origins Had entire power sets ripped from him through various means (implied each time was actually quite traumatic, and also he has the learning curve of surviving without those skills) Countless broken bones and near-fatal injuries Probably some more stuff I've forgotten about
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Post by Tout-Perd on Dec 21, 2015 8:32:37 GMT -5
Honestly, with my cast, I used to dump a lot on Zebedee, but then I realized you can do a lot better with just one clear definitive traumatic incident, because it makes it easier for other authors and readers to keep track, as opposed to myriad trauma, which I feel kinda goes more like a "poor me" conga line. Let's see, definitive bad incidents by character:
-Zebedee: Framed for murder in Dark Truth, and receives an atomic wedgie from Yisimentsu in Light and Darkness Collide. -Thyra: Lost her parents in the Slateport/Salcester incident. More recently, something bad happened to Zebedee when they were finally seeming like a real couple. -Miko: Blew down Salcester as a coup for his people to invade... And when laying low afterwards, realized he had horribly screwed up any chance at Summoners peacefully integrating. Now he's stuck between the militant Summoners in the homeland, who want him to ravage the whole world like that and pave a path to ruling the planet, and the moderates like Maude and Illiana (and himself) who want to try to repair Summoner relations with the rest of humanity and peacefully integrate their empire. And the problem is... the extremists aren't willing to wait any more. -Maude: Is dead. Got booted from the Summoners for being a conscientious objector. Hurting people has never sat right with her. But now as a Summoner expatriate, she's hated by both non-Summoners and Summoners alike. (I wonder how she and Illiana would get along, since Illiana had the balls to continue working from within the Summoners to improve them, while Maude just straight up bailed?) -Helen: Attempted to kill Miko in the wake of the Slateport incident, but the spell backlashed and killed a restaurant full of people. Also had Prime die on a personally motivated heist, but that's less me traumatizing her, and more Prime doing his thing. -Nopcsa: Disowned by his family. -Blaise: Hooooo boy. Not going to touch this one yet, because Ishka12 and Pococurante spoilers. I will say I think she may have had the most traumatic life in my entire cast, though. -Garth: Is slowly dying from using his powers, and deliberately chose to keep the powers instead of forsaking them. -Achenes: Is basically Ginger!Batman.
That's an off the cuff list of my A-listers and B-Listers. Some of my characters don't really have a driving trauma (Didn't, Kendil, Reba) all come to mind, but that's because Didn't's whole deal is she kinda just drifts around spreading happiness, and Reba's largely compelling because she's already a fully formed character who feels like she's got years of history, just dropping into ORP afresh.
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Post by Lady Kara on Dec 22, 2015 18:22:43 GMT -5
Well, if comes down to listing what we've done... here's my little summary of ORP character abuse...
Kara = Been dead once (but that was Kuroboom's fault), almost died from a chest wound she got in a battle against an unnamed foe (still kinda wonder if I should have a tie to that in a future story; might be interesting), and almost died giving birth to her daughter Ayane. Then of course the many times she's gotten hurt in fights, but none of those injuries have been majorly serious.
Serpentei = Been through tons of shit through his many years training as a kihenshin knight, gotten hurt while performing his duty as bodyguard for Kara's grandfather Masamune, and currently has something wrong with his heart that he'd only been slightly aware of (revealed in Mirror of Urakuni; haven't had the chance to explore that yet and how serious it could be)
Sagami = Had something wrong with his heart that required surgery being done on it. The story this took place in never had a chance to go anywhere, so I've yet to deal with the aftermath of that and his ongoing recovery (which I do want to someday, honestly; his dealing with no longer being as strong as he used to is gonna be an interesting struggle)
Nagisa = Was gonna have some shit happen to her via LTR since Haji is hunting after her, but LTR is currently dead.
As for the stuff I mentioned about being cruel to my OCs over on Gaia... I tend to have them get beat up almost to the point of dying... a lot. XP
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