It happens ALL the time. I see it on every board and I swear to God it's just getting ridiculous. It even happened to ME today.

So we make a post. Our character is really hitting the drama chord hard right? How many times have you gotten a PM or a message on your instant messagers asking you what's wrong with YOU? "Well your post was just so sad so you MUST be sad!" "No, I'm really not, I'm in a super good mood actually." "Really, you can talk to me. You know that right?" "Sure, and when I need to, I'll come to you." "What's wrong?" "...nothing." "You keep saying that." "BECAUSE NOTHING IS WRONG!" "Why are you yelling?!" "...never mind."

There's nothing more annoying to me than someone trying to psychoanalyze me because of something my characters are doing in an RP. If my CHARACTER is depressed, I'm not. Not to mention, you're half my age. Please do not try to school me with your highschool psych class and claim that I need to see a shrink. Thank you.

It's not even just that. It goes deeper.

Not only can't I post an emotion without them asking me if I'm all right, I can't have a certain character type because people assume they're all modeled after me! Not the case! I don't care how many RPers base their characters off of themselves because it's "easier to play them that way", that isn't how I do things. I play an alcoholic who sleeps around -- I rarely drink and I don't have sex. Period end of story. I don't have a secret life. I play a drug addict and his twin brother a former drug addict. No, I'm neither. End of story. I even play a girl who's unsure of what gender she wants to get romantically involved with! No, not me, sorry if that's unfair to "real lesbians and bisexuals". It's ROLE PLAY. I'm PLAYING a ROLE.

End of story.

Yea you know I play a heroin addict who does almost every drug under the sun here and there.

You know how many times I've had to tell people that I've never tried heroin? Coke? It's ridiculous. Thankfully that has greatly died down over time and people who are just introduced to the character don't ask ridiculous questions, but in all honesty I've upgraded to a different level of...how do I say thing....roleplay.

In all fairness to those who have asked, I pride myself on being realistic with his heroin use and I'm a weirdo and know a lot about it. And most of the people who did ask were unfamiliar with the drug in general or young.

But regardless, the idea that just because I play a heroin addict well doesn't mean I've done it =/ I should start taking that as a compliment...erm, as in I must write it good enough.

#_____#;

One of the rules at 'Souls is to keep OOC and IC separate. If you don't like a character, hey, that's cool, but don't take it up with the player, and vice versa.

And... if my characters really reflected who I am and what I am feeling, I'd be... crazy. A nutjob, pretty much. |:

I've never actually been asked any of that, but where I frequent, I've gotten to know a lot of the players pretty well, and in most cases, I can tell that their character =/= who they are. And why should it? I think one of the best parts about roleplaying is having a character so completely unlike yourself.

Seriously, one of my favourite characters is sexist, gay, and extremely prejudiced. He hates women, likes males, hates werewolves, likes werecoyotes, but only likes male werecoyotes. He is a psychopath, but he doesn't think so. He's got a bit of a righteousness about him, and thinks werewolves are scum, deserving any death brought to them.

Obviously I am nothing like that, which is why he is so much fun to roleplay. I really get into his mindset, which makes it fun.

If someone thought I was like him... uhoh. #__#;

I have a mentally unstable character who is a violent sadistic psychopath.

Good thing my friends can realise that she is not how I really am.

If I were my characters...I'd have some serious mental issues. Like, painful multiple personality disorder. I'm playing, uh.. *counts* 19 characters at the moment. None of them are exactly the same, and several have some serious issues. I, however, am relatively stable. :lol:

I think people that conflate characters and players tend to be the ones who can't (or won't) play anyone who isn't like them. I hope the ones you're dealing with smarten up soon!

Thank God ^.^ Sane people. You all make me feel so much better and less likely to blow up ^.^ Yay.

But yes, I do hope they smarten up. I play more than the four characters I mentioned and I really don't think I could count them all right now as I already know I'd leave out/forget some of them xD Whoops. So really, how can I be like ALL of them? >.< Seriously.

The emotions thing bothered me even more though. It was like I wasn't ALLOWED to be all right if my character wasn't. I think that's just insane. Completely. And anyone who doesn't know the difference is just insane.

That baffles me.

Why can't people understand that you're playing a role. It's like acting and experimenting by being someone else. I can understand how characters you can relate to are easier to play, but it doesn't mean they should try to put you down cause of it.

That just confuses me how they expected you to have a certain emotion because of how your characters are behaving. If my behaviour is effecting my characters; I log off rather than have them influenced by me.

I know right! If I was in the same mood as all of my characters, I'd have to be committed! I mean, I've got one suffering from a severe depression because his fiance walked out on him (for a good reason but we won't get into it XD), I've got one suffering from severe paranoia and craziness so obviously he's just out of his mind in all of his posts, I've got sad characters, angry ones, always bubbly happy ones. Some are bipolar at random times. I mean, seriously!

I admit to having at least partially interconnected IC/OOC emotions. Often if I'm not in a good mood OOC my IC characters are a little more sombre and if I'm really happy, so are they. Makes it more difficult to keep IC, but usually I have different threads of varying moods going on so I swap threads.

I'd never assume that a character's mood = player's mood though. That's silly xD

Well the story is, I killed one of my characters off today xD I can't tell you how many messages I got asking me what was wrong with ME and if I was okay and wondering if I was contemplating suicide?! I'm like .. no ... it wasn't on my to-do list ... I'm actually great .....

It was a like they couldn't understand that though XD They just kept assuring me that something was definitely wrong and that they needed to know what it was. I'm like .. if I were going to commit suicide I wouldn't write about it I'd go do it. I'm not. I'm not suicidal. Please stop now.

Oh my gosh .. iJoker, I'm so sorry that the people you play with are being so silly. And, well, nosy. I can understand being concerned but they really have no reason to be concerned. o_O What, do all their characters have fluffy bunnies and rainbows coming out of their every orifice? I don't get it.

That's worse than killing off a character. RABBITS DO NOT FIT IN THERE

Hmm. Once again (durn what is this?) I can see that point of view xD I know people who would do that sort of thing for attention (and they want the attention so that someone will care for them enough so they won't want to commit suicide) and I know if I was on your site and played with you and though there might be something wrong I wouldn't get off your back. I wouldn't judge it off IC though! Again.

AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA That rainbows and bunnies thing xD Seriously! I mean, everyone who messaged me today, every single one of their characters has gone through something dramatic but I never thought that they were going to go and do the same things! Next time someone says something to me, I'm totally going to mention the rainbows and bunnies thing xD

Dude, Emma, there's totally another thread going on in the rant section about the emo girl who has a ton of problems. She claims all of her characters reflect her and she plays them accordingly. Which is a lie. She plays herself according to everyone else's characters XD Off topic but still ranting, she actually took a disease that one of my previous characters had and went through every single stage in the RP that I went through until I finally called her on it. Suddenly the disease was dropped XD

Anyways, back on topic XD Rainbows and bunnies XD I'm still giggling.

I agree with the opinions posted here. However, I feel I must play devil's advocate for a moment to eplain what I have seen to be the most common mindset, albeit not the only one.

In general, MOST people don't kill off their characters unless something major, generally OOC, has happened. It's far from universal and it's silly, but it's true - on the sites I've been off, the vast majority of character deaths were due to major life events. The only character I've ever killed was connected to an event I went through, so while I disagree with the idea that it's the ONLY reason, I can see why it could be a contributing factor.

Just because you're mature enough to separate OOC and IC doesn't mean everyone is, and considering the number of attention whoring idiots who don't even know the difference, I'd wager that people's epectations have fallen low enough that they assume you to be the same. Take pride in each reply you send, for you are educating people!

...Or... something like that.

Well, if that's true then I must be paranoid that imaginary people are out to get me.

x.x

It's because too many people attach themselves to their characters in such a way that they bring OoC drama IC and IC drama OoC.

Haha way to make me feel like character MURDERER. I'd kill off a character for fun/drama on the board.

I must be a sadistic #$@

Same here. It's a story and some characters must die. *evil*

Oh it ticks me off so bad when people mix real life and IC! IYou are playing a role! If Julia Roberst plays a depressed character you will not think that she is all depressed in real life! If an actor plays a character fluent in 10 languages, that doesn't mean they are! If they play a character with superpowers...well y' get the point. Will Smith hasn't become a recovering alcoholic after Hancock has he?

Man these people must be terrified of me. I play a sadistic murderer who is, needless to say, a bit insane.

I've had this problem so many times! I had a character who was extremly depressed and tried to kill herself. Along came the flood of PMs saying that everything would be okay and I shouldn't do anything stupid. THEN on another site my 16 year old charrie got pregnant with twins and suddenly I was a slut who was also pregnant. Well, obviously not. Anyone who knows me personally knows I'm happy-go-lucky and I just like playing the depression.

Then there's my other character Yasmin. She's a little psycho. Little's putting it nicely. But apparently because she's psycho, I am, too. So I created a "normal" character and suddenly I'm totally fine. I'm just creative enough to play a psycho character, too. It's nuts and bothers the crap out of me! I feel your pain.