Someone Make These.....

[Rose of Morpheus]

^ Well he doesn't have a set picture, just like Relana never has...this was back in the day when you didn't have images for your characters. You just had to describe them in detail. And never have I found images to match my character and it'll be hard to match Dante's. Though I think you'll like him and if you wouldn't mind going in detail with me, I'd love to tell you the whole grusome past the best I can remember it, though we might have to polish it up and fill in our own pieces because I didn't know what happened to his character when I wasn't around. So all I can tell you is what I remember and what Relana remembers.




but here's a breif overview


Dante Ka'veer isn't much older than Relana. Back when she was 12, he was 17. Big difference back then. Now she was physically well developed and mentally aged as well. She passed for close to his age very easily which is why he formed a sort of interest in her. He heard about this young girl walkin the allies of the city, taking the torn and downtrodded and giving them the means to protect themselves and to form a "family" like group that was rapidly growing. He came to her and met her and she, without any hesitation or fear, greeted him with a peck on the cheek, a few soft spoken rules, and introduced him into the family. Well, other larger and more powerful clans, in the grown world, were already established. The bigger her clan became the harder it was for her to keep control. Territory became a need. However, as her clan began to invade on other properties and the talk of peace and prosperity flowed into other clans and breakin down weaker members, the other clans saw them as a pest, not so much a problem, and thus they began to target, threaten, her clan. A few of them were seriously hurt and even killed. Faced with such unknown hostility, she showed her true colors. Though she had a calm head and a soft heart and all the right intentions.............she was no leader. She couldn't get her clan together, get her people to practice like they needed to, she couldn't protect the very family she had created...............Dante saw this just like theo ther clans did. Confronting her, by then she was 13 and he 18, he grabbed her by her jaw, hissed at how foolish of a girl she was, stared into her eyes and told her how foolish he was to be so drawn to her, watching her fail at her own self-appointed job and her little romances (for she had two between a council member and a knight) brushed his thumb agianst her lip, and left her and her clan despite her soft whispers for her need for his strength........


He later joined a different clan and worked his a** off to become the top dog, inheriting it when the original leader was slain in a fight. Paying an assasin, he decided to mercifully put Relana out of her misery. The only way to put the whole town back into some sort of order was to get rid of her and her makeshift group. So the hired hitman came to Relana and they wound up fighting a good bit before he actually managed to shoot her close range, leaving her for dead. The members of her clan that were left were found out, and killed, and anyone who wasn't, left the city, left until they couldn't be found.

[Kunush]

My guy. He kicks a**. Nuff said.

EDIT: my OC. Steal the pic and I cut your nuts off.

Edit 2: No nuts? Ripping ovaries out is far worse.

[Strude]

I do not have RPC's, I'm so epic I don't need them! LOLZ!

[Kunush]

Strude

I do not have RPC's, I'm so epic I don't need them! LOLZ!

just a puff of godliness. I had a char like that. The cloud. I did whatever I wanted.

[Strude]

Huh? No, seriously, I don't have RPC's . . . I LOLZ because a lot of people do. I personally find them a hindrance and annoyance to roleplay as, and with.

[Rose of Morpheus]

If you have no RPC's then how in the crap do you roleplay?

[Strude]

RPC's in the traditional sense, of characters you create and use in multiple RP's.
For example, like your Relena character. I don't have characters like that.
I do not have cookie cutter copies, that I adapt from RP to RP.
I make new characters, every roleplay I make.
I can not transfer old characters from other roleplays into new roleplays. Doesn't work.

edit: So yes, I have roleplay characters; however, not in the traditional sense.
edit#2: So really I have hundreds of characters.

[Rose of Morpheus]

I used to not do that. But after roleplays die too fast and when I had grown attached to the characters, I decided that I'd keep them as they are, but change things about their lives when necessary in order to put them in a new rp. They would, however, keep their personalities because I'd make sure the story of their pasts stayed the same, just the details changed. But it's been so long since I roleplayed Relana.......



from what happened to her after her clan fell to the point of now, she's an emotionless shell who is so boring to even think about
but by rewinding the tape and rewriting what's going to happen to her
now that I'm writing with a 20 year old's mind
instead of a 13 year old's mind (since I was 13 when Relana's life was last written about)
she should be rather interesting again....just the wild and crazy out of this world things in her past are getting tossed out to make for a real world.

[Strude]

EXACTLY! There is the problem with RPC's and why I personally find then annoying to have in my roleplays. The players of RPC's are, as you said, attached to the character. Making it harder for someone like myself (who does not allow myself to develop that kind of attachment to my characters) to enjoy the roleplay. Players attachment to their characters, limits their willingness to do thing to and with their characters. Players become to involved and to centered around the specifics of their characters, that it burdens other players.

Example: "There is a HUGE problem with bringing in Relana though. She'll be a lonely gal if she doesnt have some form of an opponent from back in her old days."

That is the kind of burden and annoyance you place on other players. I would hate to have to roleplay with someone who is that involved and focused on their character. You are so attached to that character, and so involved in that characters life; that I can bet you would have a hard time even thinking about slaughtering that character. Killing her off, and saying good bye. Because that character is a marry sue, she is a placeholder for you, you are that character. Meaning, that the character lacks the realism so many players desire of characters, now a days. It also means that you limit that character; because, you yourself would not be willing to be placed in certain situations.

Where as someone who is not so involved in their character, can make nearly anything happen to their characters. They allow the world the character was build for, the other characters in that world, and the events of that world, shape that character. Making the character more realistic, believable and desirable.

[The Silver Marauder]

I would think that being so attached to a character would have its benefits, though. If you worked with it for a long time, you would know them intimately, have a backstory for them, know exactly how they'd react in a situation. I'm very attached to my characters, but I will kill them off for the sake of a necessary plot twist, or if the situation requires. Although I don't use the same character through multiple rp's...

@Rose: I'm intrigued by your character. We must talk, but I think I can do it. Although, on the alternative, you can always try to make enemies with other people. There are plenty of gang wars and opposing opinions, it should be easy. Something to consider.

[Strude]

Exactly, I love my characters, like I said Gordon Scott Hans was one of my favorites. However, Gordon was made for one roleplay, his history, his life, his relationships, his personality, who he is, was created solely for one world, and one cast of characters.

Just because Gordon is a space pirate, from a science fiction roleplay. Does not mean I can take him and put him into another sci-fi, space pirate roleplay. Gordon Scott Hans, would not be Gordon Scott Hans, if I put him into a new roleplay; with a new cast of characters.

Also, with Gordon I am not using him as a placeholder for myself. He is a character, not an extension of myself. Gordon is nothing like me. He is in and of himself, I am only a narrator for him, I am not him.

[The Silver Marauder]

I like to put bits of me into each of my character. It gives me something to connect to them with, something relatable, without making them a bland clone of me. That's a great name, by the way.

[Strude]

That is a given, every character has some kind of creative value, whether it be something about the characters personality that has a personal meaning to you. A quirk the character has, that you also have. Small things. However, making a character a extension of yourself, or making them a placeholder for you is a bad thing. Placeholders/extension characters are breading grounds for unbelievable, unrealistic, limited characters. Something that some players, must learn over time. I've had over ten years of writing experience to learn this, as well as 10 years of RP experience. I think I've gotten past the need to make placeholders and extensions of myself. I'm in it for the writing, the character is just the device I use to tell stories.

Thanks, I personally think I have quite a few good character names! ^___^'

edit: With Gordon he just supplied me with my daddy complex fix!

[The Silver Marauder]

Are you using extension of yourself as a synonym to virtual self? Because I perceive at as a good thing. I see it as you become so in sync to your character, it becomes an alternate personality for yourself, a different identity/personality/persona, but still an extension of you.

Have you ever been to behindthename.com? I usually get my more outlandish names from there, I like them to have a real meaning.

[Strude]

I have a baby name book, that I use if I get stumped for names.

No, I do not mean a persona. Strude is a persona, he is an extension of myself, and when I RP him, he exactly like me, but is a furry, and has a p***s (and is never serious and I only RP him in OOC and random a** crack roleplays). Persona are one thing, RPC's that players are to self involved in are another.

EDIT: Though the essay is about fanfiction writing and the Marry Sue of fanfiction. It does apply to roleplaying too.

Quote from the essay "To Good To Be True: 150 Years of Marry Sue" by Pat Pflieger: "She's amazingly intelligent, outrageously beautiful, adored by all around her -- and absolutely detested by most reading her adventures. She's Mary Sue, the most reviled character type in media fan fiction. [1] Basically, she's a character representing the author of the story, an avatar, the writer's projection into an interesting world full of interesting people whom she watches weekly and thinks about daily. Sometimes the projections get processed into interesting characters, themselves. Usually, though, they don't." (To Good To Be True: 150 Years of Marry Sue, paragraph 1)

"By the term "projection," I don't mean that Mary Sue is simply a substitute for the author, though the character does allow the author to enjoy vicariously adventures in a world which gives her pleasure. In that sense, as fan writer Paula Smith points out, "... all characters for all writers are [wish fulfillment]." Mary Sue is more a placeholder, a term apparently used by writers of romance fiction, as mentioned in several essays in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance. Despite appearances, the essay authors agree, readers of romance fiction aren't identifying with the heroine of the work; their real focus is on the hero, with the heroine holding open a spot in the novel into which the (usually female) reader can slip mentally. Though this argument may seem simplistic in regard to romance novels, it does seem the basis for the Mary Sue: she holds a place open in the story for the author -- and presumably for the reader. She can be successful: fan fiction abounds in examples of original characters who are interesting in their own right. All too often, however, the character is a failed placeholder; her very obtrusiveness keeps readers from slipping into her place and into the adventure they have come to enjoy, as she shifts the focus from the media characters readers want to read about." (To Good To Be True: 150 Years of Marry Sue, paragraph 5)

"It's an image we find in other writing as well; as fan fiction writers have pointed out, Mary Sue has a long history. She is a type we see in fiction written in at least two centuries, especially fiction written by less-than-experienced writers. As such, she is a measure of the dreams of her creators, and a gauge of the times in which they write." (To Good To Be True: 150 Years of Marry Sue, paragraph 7)

"Mary Sue is often easy to spot because she's impossible to miss. Put simply, Mary Sue is more: more charming, more belligerent, more understanding, more beautiful, more graceful, more eccentric, more spiritual, more klutzy. She has better hair, better clothes, better weapons, better brains, better sex, and better karma than anyone else. Even next to the strong and interesting heroines of twentieth-century media and fiction, she stands out. She is singular; she is impossible to ignore.

Her name is distinctive, symbolic, or descriptive -- and sometimes uncannily similar to that of her creator. Kielle Fantasia has a name made up of a spelling variation of her creator's name, "Kelly," and of a surname in Kelly's family tree; Saraid shares the Internet name of her creator but "is *not* a mary sue....the name just fit." Very often, the name is uncommon: Simplicity, Anasta, Unella, Maia, Janaris, Rowan, Callisto. Some names are so distinctive that the author provides a pronunciation guide: her creator informs us that Janaris is pronounced "Yah-NAH-ris." A number of names can be shortened to a variation of "Cat".

Mary Sue is physically striking. She has yards of curls in a distinctive color, usually auburn or jet-black or, like Rowan Michaels, silvery-blonde streaked with purple, which gives her "an almost non-human quality." Often, the character's skin color sets her apart: Unella's "fair and rosy" skin contrasts with that of the native Americans she lives with; Janaris Reed has "flawless deep caramel-colored skin". Mary Sue's smell is unique: Rowan smells of eucalyptus and lavender; Janaris, "like Nile lilies and jungle blooms"; Christine Chevalier smells of strawberries. Mary Sue's eyes sparkle in memorable colors: Saraid Manasdottir's eyes are "sparkling blue" in the twentieth century, though a "warm, sparkling gold" 300 years earlier; Janaris' are "panther-green". Mary Sue is muscular, but slim, athletic and graceful. She is tall -- in Highlander stories, she is as tall as Duncan MacLeod. She often sports an unusual -- but tasteful -- tattoo: Rowan has a tiger, Callisto has a small gothic cross. When not wearing leather -- usually black -- Mary Sue wears wonderful clothes that accentuate her slim -- but voluptuous -- beauty." (To Good To Be True: 150 Years of Marry Sue, paragraphs 9 through11)