...between IC and OOC.
I thought I'd give a quick note on the Kidnapped thread that I was going to have significantly reduced participation for the rest of the event. But when I thought about it, I decided to do this instead. Sort of...explaining myself in a way, since that's what these blogs are theoretically for, and to kind of reflect on a few issues. Kidnapped is related, but not the main issue here, I think.
Let me say, however, that my preferences are just that...my preferences. My opinions. Loxmardin and Xigo have run an event that a lot of people legitimately enjoy. That I did not is not really their fault, so much as a difference in the kinds of RP that we enjoy (and it's not that we don't have overlapping interests...it's just that this wasn't one of them.)
So when initially asked, I simply said that I couldn't stomach the grimdark of the event. Towards the end I'd started to feel legitimately ill and that was a sign for me to take a step back from the event and let it play out its course. I'll play for the finale and if I get poked for specific character-to-character RP, but I didn't want anything more to do with the event itself.
Really, I was only hanging around the event for two things, I found: Surthak flirting with Gron, and Surthak having those emotional talks with Geoni and Thalvin. I don't regret those RPs, they're some of the most fun I've had. But I ran into this snag where I was feeling -depressed- just logging in. The oppressive atmosphere, etc. I've always favored the more "light and fluffy" kinds of RP: romance, comedic scenes, and action-adventure stuff especially. What it came down to, I found, is that like it or not I was channeling a bit of my own character's emotions. Surthak was depressed, and therefore so was I. Surthak had moments of happiness when he interacted with those he was close to, and so did I. It occurred to me that in many ways, this was also why I have always enjoyed RPing Thragash: he's such an up-beat, jovial guy that I can't help but smile along with him as he goes around telling his jokes and generally being the friendliest guy you'd ever meet. A lot of my love came from living vicariously through my characters, feeling their emotional highs as they do.
And this by itself wouldn't have bothered me, until discussions among some friends turned to the potential death of Gron during the finale of the event...and, for a brief moment, I was rather upset at the notion. Gron isn't even my character! But Surthak had grown increasingly emotionally-attached to him, and in a certain why I'd feel sad for his loss. Of course I'd never dream of telling someone "No, you can't delete your own character," because that's just silliness. But it did get me thinking.
How much of a hypocrite am I that I can tell someone, as an admin and a GM, to not take IC things OOC, when apparently I have problems doing the same?
How does one handle that?
Am I the only one?
I'm not sure. Maybe my day off will help me get some perspective and relax a bit. And hopefully writing this here would, too. If anyone's got any comments or advice, feel free to leave them here.
I would say, it's something to do with empathy. When you're reading a story you tend to feel for the main character, so I'd think that naturally you'd feel a bit for your own character, which in some cases would be a good way to gauge how your character would appropriately react to a situation.
Yeah, Kidnapped is pretty dark and can be hard to stomach in some places, without a doubt. It's even scary at times. Take the break as you feel you need, you know what you need better than anyone else could.
Hang in there, buddy.
Edit: Gouge and gauge are two very different words. Uh oh.
No I don't think you're the only one at least it has happened to me and I have witnessed it. In my experience I was attached to my first incarnation of Jidaeo. Long story short he got into an incident that was partially influenced OOcly which was obvious by what was discussed in Raid and IC actions. The combination of the two ( OOC influence on IC actions and my favorite shiny toon ) caused me to take the incident poorly. I realized I was too attached to the character. This character's fate was not my own.
Ever since that incident, I've removed myself somewhat from my characters and try to push or move a storyline with many characters. I use characters more as tools to convey an Idea or theme rather than explore the world through the eyes of an adventurer or individual reacting to what is around them. Obviously bonds and fun things will be formed. But I always suggest alts. Alts always let you have multiple combinations of personalities and emotions if you're tied to characters like that. Keep Thrag for your happy moments, Surthak for your Romance and light fluffy, have a char to smash things and maybe one to release anger out on. Since RP is therapeutic in a way. Not that an alt could serve only one purpose but hopefully you get the idea. At least its a suggestion!
Hey, Grakor - I absolutely know what you mean by all this. It's... Part of the reason I retired Adelaide as a character.
Throughout the week, when she had nightmares, I did. When she was getting more and more antisocial, I found myself dipping out of being particularly social. As she got worse, my mood was harder to fix.
And I would be lying if I said that the way I put her out isn't still bothering me. Scaring me.
It bites both ways, too. I'm not the most socially-minded girl there is, to be truthful. I'm something of an introvert. This means that most of my characters end up in some way against socializing. Which makes for lonely RP, for one, and for two - given that they have their own personalities and lives, it makes for miserable characters. And the cycle repeats.
These are parts of our brains we're putting out. We're pulling something in us out and laying it bare, when we RP. Whether it was there to begin with or not, we have to at least think we feel these things when our characters do, so we know how to properly have them respond. The unfortunate thing is, this often leads to a certain drop in mood, when your character hurts. It hurts you, too.
I'm not sure what I'm saying, I guess. I just wanted to say you're really, really not alone in this.
You're definitely not the only one to feel that way. Before I took my break I was really involved with my characters, like on an emotional level. I never wanted to see my oh so precious characters be hated upon or put into situations which would harm them. I had to step back and analyze on what was happening to me, that I was having the feelings that my characters were feeling.
If you're feeling that way, taking a day to relax is the best thing you can definitely do.
You just have to make sure your emotional roller coaster is connected tightly to the rails so it doesn't crash into any emotions that aren't you're own. Well, that's at least what I had to do.
All I'll say is that I was legit choking up over Thalvin's suffering upon seeing Roux and others hurt. I'm a terribly easy crier.
I understand it. I myself felt rather crappy and down for a good week when I killed Sanot off. I thought getting rid of a semi-silly over-the-top shoot-em-up character would be easy, not a day later I said to myself "I regret that."
I wont go back on it, because what's done is done, but the line between IC and OOC can get very blurry at times.
Thanks for the comments so far, guys and gals.
A thought...do you believe, then, that it is how we deal with these emotions that is more important than their presence or absence? Or, as emotions can often affect us without our fully knowing, that is still important to manage?
It just means that you're immersing yourself within your character, which is from my viewpoint, normal. How else will you be able to react to short, quick emotes that are shot at your character? At times, you have to -be- your character in order to properly display who s/he is.
And some times it means sharing the same emotions that they would.
Mava, my Kaldorei, just died last night. Out of the blue, a character that I haven't really attached myself to recently since I was occupied with the Blood Knights. After she died, I realize what exactly would happen to the character if she was brought back. The I-told-you-so scolding from her father along with his overall 'tough love' demeanor would actually drop into something more gentler after he finds out what death is going to do to her daughter. If I bring Mava back, she's going to lose the ability to chase after her dream of being a Warden. Hell, she's going to be lucky if she can even tend her father's forge or even be an apprentice to lug around the goods to the stall for selling if her heart can handle it. Not that she'll be able to sell them herself, since her face is going to not only be scarred by fel fire, but with these lingering claw marks that ripped across her face before her death.
Her very best hope is going to be either a lowly acolyte in the temple of Elune or stuck in a man's role which is more degrading than anything she'll ever experience. Mava has no future, no hope, no defined goal anymore.
And I got really sad once I figured all this out. Near tears as I rolled about in my bed, restless with what could happen to one of my characters, imagining her anguish and depression when she finds out that she'll no longer be able to do what she loved to do for her entire life. There's no chance of redemption for her mistakes. Her chapter is going to end in ultimate failure.
... So, yeah. It's very normal and what I do when these moments strike me is to simply separate myself from the character a little bit. I know I won't be able to handle any more grimdark for the time being, I've gotten my fill. Finding some bright, or even casual RP is nice after things like this. Or playing an entirely different game(hint hint, LoL. Unless you get mad at that. Then that won't do any good). Distance yourself from the dark RP and try to occupy your mind on other things. It's what I need to do as well, I won't be able to write up Mava's rez post for a good while until I relax and detach myself.
If you want to avoid this all together, do just that. Avoid situations that might bring unwanted drama or sorrow upon your character. You might not be able to effect other player's characters, but all you can do is steer your own in the right direction and hope for the best.
Ninja edit: Emotions are going to effect your actions without you realizing it, or let's take OOC opinion in general. If I like a character, I'm going to steer mine towards him/her. If I don't like a character, I'm driving mine away or maybe even wanting to push my character into fighting the undesirable in hopes of killing them. A bit extreme, but you never really realize what your intentions are until you view it in hindsight.
It is very important to try and keep your OOC emotions out of IC actions. You can let IC emotions affect you OOCly, but never the other way around. If you are letting OOC emotions, opinions, or mood cause your character to do something they normally wouldn't, then it's time to deal with them and engage the break.
It isn't hypocritical at all, Grakman. We make attatchments to characters- not just our own, but also those of our friends, too. I've been hit hard by the retirement of several characters, either by death or by the player leaving or taking a break, and a good few I've stuck my nose in people's business to keep them around longer (*coughImmycough*).
We're told to keep OOC and IC seperate, but I feel this is only so long as OOC -influences- IC. OOC, I knew Adelaide was going to kill herself today from that jump. IC, though, I had to keep Maeia out of it- she would have had no idea.
I'm sad to see you duck out of Kidnapped so close to the end, as I feel enduring these OOC and IC hardships can make us stronger, but you're well allowed to do so, and understandably so. This stuff can get heavy. Sometimes things get too heavy to Role Play anymore. It happened with Cristovao, actually- one of the reasons I did a lot of tweaking and am planning a rewrite of his character since we went Cata was because his emotional drama became -too much- for me to endure. His tragedies were busting my nuts, and I didn't wanna RP him... which in turn got him stuck, because without RP, how do you escape these dramas?
I fully agree that how we deal with these emotions is what maatters. We can't... make our selves not care about characters and actions. Pathos is human nature, mostly, and I know that hella well, as most of my characters are pathos-based irrational idiots. We can't change who we are or what we feel, but we can always control how we handle the situation.
Here's hoping you don't stay down till the end of Kidnapped, though. Maeia will need Surthak's optimisim now that she's armless :|
This thread reminded me of
this one that originated from a series of RPs I had on Bruhara, which brought up a lot of discussion ICly about what power truly is and where it comes from. I find the connections we have to our characters to be interesting, mostly because many of them stem from parts of ourselves. Jonoth is my sense of adventure. Remyl is my dirty mind. Yvakara was a manifestation of both how my mom is and my hopes and fears of being a parent myself. And that's why we feel so empathetic to them. In a way, the decisions we face with characters mimic the choices we make in the real world, and we can often have the tendency to react to the consequences of those decisions the same way. So we end up learning a lot about the type of people we are by how we navigate the virtual world.
In relation to the grimdark stuff, it's why it can often be difficult to handle, because many of those situations are not the ideal way we'd want to go out if things went that way, and many times find that the ending is not one of our own choosing. Everyone wants to have a happy ending, or at the very least, go out with a bit of pride and dignity, even in the face of adversity, and we work to that in our characters. The real world doesn't always afford the "getting shot by Clint Eastwood, narrated by Morgan Freeman" perfect ending, so at the very least, we feel it's owed to us in fantasy.
I realize that during Kidnapped 6, I've put Geoni through a lot, and I mean a lot. Not only that, but the images I have attached to his condition are very detailed and true to realism, and I do worry that this kind of RPing has contributed to an atmosphere of depression and hopelessness. I tend to interweave a lot of my personal life and feelings into my characters and that has come out through Geoni in this event, and in doing this I myself have been thrown into the atmosphere I created for myself. Upon realizing this, I did what I knew would help me detach myself, and it was throwing another character into it.
So...Nilyssae was my cure for the feeling you're describing. And perhaps my advice would be to try playing on your other characters to detach yourself from Surthak or at least give yourself a breather. Spending a lot of time with one character can create a great feeling of immersion, but if its downfalls become too much to handle, detachment (may it be temporary or permanent) is sometimes necessary.
I've really enjoyed the RP between Geoni and Surthak but I'm quite alright seeing that come to an end after finally noticing this thread. Though I'd be happy and open to seeing them hang out some time later, when they're not starving and dizzy.
I still plan, at the very least, on coming back for the finale. And really, I'd enjoy still doing the one-on-one character stuff (Surthak x Gron, Surthak x Geoni, Surthak x Thalvin especially) if someone wants to poke me to get on for that.
Also, Surthak better see Geoni again! They're bros now!
I find the empathy we feel as authors of our characters to be very peculiar. We are responsible for creating both the situations that make them suffer as well as the caveats that prevent them from being able to move on. But the fact that no well-written character in the sort of environment we have cultivated on this server can be without their share of hardships and shortcomings attests to how experiences sculpt us as human beings. We can use the act of creating these characters as a way of developing ourselves.
Whether it be exploring dark themes to better understand our own coping mechanisms through the cypher of a character or just to exercise critical thought in a creative manner- what we feel when practicing healthy roleplay habits is good for the soul.
I feel that the "Line Between IC and OOC" is a bit of a misnomer, because one confusing one for the other is but a side effect of a broader problem: unhealthy roleplaying practices. As authors, we innately have a relationship with these fictional people, and if not treated with the respect due to any real human being, things become psychologically hampering for one or both parties. Now, if someone just doesn't "click" with a character, it can be bad for the fictional party's personality and frustrating for the player. But that isn't nearly as big a problem as the aforementioned confusion of character with self.
I think this matter has been discussed plenty already, both on CotH and elsewhere, but I find it very important to separate the abuse of a character as a surrogate and when a roleplayer has strong synergy with a character. In the end, the metaphor of author-to-character relationship reflecting that of real people serves me well as my personal rule of thumb. Being in sync with a character is like my big sis and I sharing opinions and even saying things at the same time as me. We are a lot alike for similar reasons, but she is 100% a different entity than me. Our will is alike, but unique to ourselves.
I may click with Flora, and I predict many of her reactions based on the way I might behave, but at the end of the day, she's an undead, decayed woman and still has more of a sex drive than me (which, as an asexual, I find a bit difficult to write) and is terribly impulsive compared to me. She's a different person.
Even with namesake and "token fantasy self" sorts of characters I see around here, there is no fear in diverting from the original concept of the character for the sake of story. I really don't think that unhealthy RP practices are much of a problem on CotH, other than the occasional havoc the server can wreak on one's sleep schedule. It is a very stimulating topic to contemplate, however.
Soo I hear someone is depressed? D:
Surely these cats in Kidnapped will lighten the mood :O
More seriously, you might have found yourself a bit too invested, though I can understand one doesn't like more grim settings. I do tend to think a bit of strong feelings here and there can develop your character - and yourself - through these darker, more intense RP scenes.