Better Character Volume 1: Principles

[MonMarty]

Let me first start with a foreword that this thread is neither a call out, nor a judgement on people who do not comply with the red thread that the thread means to impose by implication on roleplay quality. It is merely an after-shower thought, concisely written into an action plan. This may be the first of many threads like this, or one of few, who knows. This thread in particular will cover Principles and Character Motivations, and the reason why MassiveCraft's roleplay universe is filled only with Grey Morality Characters. Before touching on the Character Study however, I'd like to explain some key points first:

• Pity roleplay, is creating circumstances in which another player will feel sorry for the character, or the player behind the character, and engage in actions beneficial to that player as a result. Crying in roleplay isn't always pity roleplay, because it can be a legitimate emotional response from a character to a situation, but crying often is a good example of pity roleplay, since crying usually makes people feel awkward or sorry for the subject.
• Skeleton Closet Roleplay, is roleplay in which the player's character has some dark secret that they do not want the rest of the player base to know about, but will use in private roleplay with friends/lovers specifically to invoke pity roleplay. A good example of this is a character that /hates/ anything Aberrant and mutated, but has a secret Kathar lover with wild mutations on the side. The player then engages in strict OOC planning to ensure this information never reaches the public (romance rp on discord, only logging on when nobody could stumble on them, etc.), so that the "secretive nature", can be used as a point to elicit pity or empathy. I.e "I'm so sad and torn up about my public hate of the Kathar but how much I love you, look at how romantic I am, please bone me".
• Flawed Character Roleplay, is roleplay involving a character with a specific trait designed to "come out" eventually, whether it is their sociopathy or emotionally manipulative nature. It is the exact opposite of Skeleton Closet Roleplay, because Skeleton Closet Roleplay, is roleplay designed to never reach the public, as the very secretive nature is part of the setup, where-as Flawed Character Roleplay is designed form the premise to eventually be made public, and the player takes no overt actions to prevent it from going public either. I felt it important to clarify the difference, because many might mistake Skeleton Closet Roleplay for being "good character design", by adding flaws to a character, but it is in fact quite the opposite, when the flaw is just being used as a crutch to elicit more romance rp or look edgy. It does not detract from the quality of the character, neither of these labels do, but the distinction is important for the following character study.

On to the matter of Gray Morality. Gray is the idea that a character is never distinctly good, but never distinctly bad either, on either a moralistic or ethical standard (by whatever standard applied, either in-universe, or our own irl western culture). I believe, personally, that 99.8% of all characters on the server, and by extension of most roleplay, are Gray Morality based, because being uniquely evil or uniquely good, is hard. The two opposite sides of the moral compass represent extremes, and from an extreme position it is very hard to bargain or use mental gymnastics to remain flexible. Players seek flexibility, because everyone inherently comes to roleplay to escape something, whether that is persecution, unhappiness, anxiety, loneliness etc, and the inherent fear of absolute morality (whether evil or good), is that they entrench characters. For example, a lonely romance roleplayer might at face value want to play a purist unionist, but this immediately cuts their viable romance partner pool by half, if not more, as the majority of the players are currently Occult to some degree. Even though the player thus chooses to apply a purist unionist ideology in say, combating the Vampires or Estellon worshipers, they make a concession on the romantic level because they like romance rp more than being "justified" in character motivations. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with simply admitting this preference. After all, the high and physical feelings of romance rp far outweight the personal approval of some intangible staff member who likes to judge characters, but there are a couple of complications that arise from characters who lack a principle ideal that does not budge, no matter how many romance partners throw themselves their way, or how many friends cause issues over roleplay conflict. To simplify the benefits and detriments of Gray Morality:

• Gray Morality Benefits:
  • Ensures no OOC conflict with friends, who dislike IC conflict with friend OC's.
  • Ensures flexibility to have positive relations with romance partners regardless.
  • Ensures no group will outwardly exclude the player from interacting with them.
  • Ensures the player can step out of conflict and take a break from it for a while.
• Gray Morality Detriments:
  • Characters lack coherent principles which make their character predictable. Lacking predictability is not inherently a good thing, it means your character's actions cannot be taken into considerations, which means rp cannot be tailored towards you. Case and example, I as an event host use predictable player reactions as part of the event. No predictable player reactions means a more boring button mash event without people feeling like they play a "role" in it.
  • It is very hard to theme-cast a character for Custom Kits. For example, if we have 3 Aelrrigan Knights, and they all apply for a Custom Kit for being an Aelrrigan Knight, they need to have an additional layer of character theming that allows their Custom Kit to be made. Without enshrined principles, a character theme is usually quite weak, only the surface-level design decisions (race, affiliation, religion), thus preventing really strong kits from being born with lots of cool sub-functions and specials that cater into those principles.
  • It is, finally, very hard to approve a Custom Kit, for a character with no principles. I inherently believe that we get so many Custom Kit rejections, because so many players don't actually know what side they want their character to stand on and stick with. So many of the Custom Kit applications are reactionary, meaning they are kit requests to just react to other people who do know what they are doing, and this is born out of a lack of solidified principles that a character sticks with, and subsequently, makes enemies and die-hard friends with.

As you can see, there is no strict moral benefit to not playing a Gray Morality character. That was never the point of this thread, the point of this thread rather was to discuss the lack of principles in characters, and then challenge the players to self examine their characters with a bit more brain power than is required for the average daily character study "what is your character's favorite way to eat a potato".

If you're still reading at this point, I'd like you to think about what principles your character should ideally have. I don't want you to wrack your brain over what principles they currently have, or sanctimoniously ride into the replies and state your character's principles because I'll have to spend a whole day pulling up logs to prove why those claims are false (this sounds snarky, I know, but bear with me). The point of the thread was never to solidify principles, but to start a conversation on what roleplay opportunities you are denying yourself by not having principles, and seeing what obstacles can be removed to solidify those principles more.

To cite an example, I had a long early morning conversation with Winterless at some point about the principle of Aelrrigan Knights, and how many of them use a lot of mental gymnastics to jump around the legal requirements of their code. We never strongly enforce it, but we aren't overtly praising of their attempts either when they do succeed, because success is often marred by the times that they chose not to act, when principles should have dictated they should. Winterless countered with the idea that choosing to stick with the principles at all times, would inevitably have his character outcast with the main modus of social group he surrounds himself with. As a regular on 69gaming discord, which in itself I would guesstimate has 80% Occult roleplayers on it, with the vast majority in Hexenblood, there was a very legitimately real fear that actively hunting one of Hexenblood's members would cause expulsion from the only social circle that Wilvamair Arnyn is able to sit down and have slice of life rp with.

And that fear is legitimate, valid, and good enough not to enforce those principles. Inversely however. I argued that it also resulted in the character's own motivations as well as Hexenblood's relation, being very placid. Boring. One-dimensional. Without the nuance of duty, which I argued many of the members would respect, the Character was just an addition that added nothing to the collective in terms of enriching the experience (not to say the character isn't valid as a member, it's just that everyone always is hunting for the next rp scoop, and if nobody is causing any modicum of conflict, everyone is always searching). The end conclusion was, that I tried to prove, and was later verified, that the Hexenblood group was equally invested in ensuring that Winterless had a means to roleplay with them. That birdsfoot_violet would not be so banal to expel Wilvamair for doing his job, and that both the player and the character could respect that this person had to do their job come high or low tide.

P.S I wanted to quickly add, I don't distinguish a difference between IC and OOC motivations. Never pretend your character is a different entity from yourself, and never pretend like all your rp isn't entirely OOC scripted and motivated. Anyone who says "keep OOC out of IC", is sanctimonious and hypocritical, all Characters are always an extension of our OOC motivations, and the sooner you acknowledge and feel comfortable with that fact, the sooner you can problem solve why you aren't getting the rp you want.
​

In the end, Winterless roleplayed with birdsfoot_violet in which the matter was discussed, and like I predicted, it resulted in a more nuanced relation both between the characters, and Wilvamair's place among the Hexenblood members as a tacitly involved outsider. That is the kind of stuff this thread is for, nor to declare our character's principles, but to declare what we think the "ideal" principles are, what principles we'd like our characters to have in an ideal world where we could disregard our anxieties and paranoia about how we will get treated if we stick to them, and then challenge each other (the players) to try and come up with solutions, or perhaps compromises? on how we can get them to work. I believe that having more principled characters who aren't strictly gray morality, will not only make event hosting much easier as you can give everyone their place to shine, but will also make applying for a Custom Kit that much easier, because a character with principles, as established, is better able to perpetuate conflict and "things happening", instead of being stuck in a forever cycle of reacting to what other people are doing.

So. The actual Character Study point: Please consider writing for each of your characters 3 or more principles they would like to have, but currently cannot, for example "Refuse friendship with any and all Occult because of religion", "Actively harm religious roleplayers because of their antitheism", or "attack any and all Suvial for Avinla terrorism against the Kathar Empire on sight". And if you have the brain power for it, also write a short piece after each principle on why you think they are untenable, whether there is an obstacle in the lore, or whether you are afraid of some kind of OOC response from other players.

And finally, when you are done, consider keeping an eye on the thread and read other people's replies, so you may be able to give them ideas or input. In the case of for example me talking with Winterless, it took me knowing birdsfoot_violet personally to be able to convince him that his fear of holding onto that principle was unfounded, and you may equally know something about a third party or group that you might use to help someone assuage their anxiety about acting out in roleplay.

 

[OkaDoka]

I was going to let someone else go first, but I decided that's weak. Here chat, enjoy my insecurity.

• Does not relax on enforcing Saaima's precepts for the sake of social convenience.
  • I just hate feeling like an asshole or like I'm ruining other people's roleplay. Realistically my character should see Cahal/Vampire/Demonologists as less than human and not care about upsetting them and their supporters when they do stupid things in public, but I keep being nice to try to 'win people over' and 'play the long game' when it's kind of just cowardice because I want to be perceived as normal enough to get social RP with the average person. I already kind of struggle to feel like my character is cared about.
• Will do (almost) anything to keep the Dragon Faithful and Aelrrigans aligned.
  • I feel like when Haqet went Archon, there was a certain expectation impressed as to what we were supposed to do about Coraveau, both from an IC theological standpoint of Noor making a dissertation, and an OOC kindness standpoint of fairness to Transistor, not punishing her for voluntarily choosing to leave her own group behind and work with ours. But my character has worked tirelessly to try to basically merge these two organizations, and it sucks for her that it's just slipping away in a few days of developments that I feel like I can't do much about.
• Mercilessly hunts down the traitor Sihai and beats them back into Dragon alignment.
  • I can't change what people want to do OOCly, for one. I can't go up to Soggytoenails, even though I think they're really cool, and just convince them hey haha Kailang should tooooooooooooooootally become a Dragon Worshiper again. That just isn't happening. Secondarily, I can't do anything to these characters, they're already outcasts and Occult and criminals, but they can totally do things to mine, and that makes me too anxious to upkeep this principle. For example, if AtticCat wanted, she could set my social credit score to -1000 by impersonating my character with Vampire Glamour for 30 minutes, which is something I'm scared enough about that I went to try to talk to her about it pre-emptively.

 

[JinxNotJinxed]

Kinteh

1.) Kinteh should be able and more than willing to emotionally manipulate or downright back stab others in order to better her own standing.
2.) She should go out of her way to do harm onto others whether physical or emotional simply because the chaos of it all is exciting.
3.) She should not be so willing to play friends with people, especially those of different alignments with religion or abberancy.

When I look on how I want Kinteh to be and how she actually ends up being, there is a pretty big difference. I honestly play her cute factor up a lot, and lean more towards pouty lipped tantrums than doing anything actually meaningful. I think pretty much every issue I have with her in some way stems from a general sense of not wanting to upset people oocly. Whether not picking a fight because it would be annoying, or being nicer than she should be to someone because her close friend or partner likes them. I do think this character study has helped me actually address my willingness to bend her personality though, perhaps I have a bit more reflecting to do.

 

[Winterless]

1. Relentlessly pursue a way to revive his wife and have his happy ending
Can't do this one because no one would want to play Wilvamair's wife, so it would ultimately just result in kinda non-rp with an NPC wife character in the background which is a bit pointless innit. I don't want NPC romance roleplay. I think this one MIGHT be resolved if there was some contrivance about her losing her memories or something and the relationship being rebuilt/redefined or even ended, depending on how the roleplay pans out

2. Attack all vampires and cahal and demonologists on sight, no exceptions
Difficult because I don't enjoy being that guy that walks into a bar of slice of life rp and sees a vampire and starts attacking them and derails the scene. But maybe the character should be like that, and people shouldn't be allowed to just say "i want this public rp space to be entirely defined by my rules and if you don't align you're ruining the rp"

3. Be the Knight in Sour armour who does a great deal of complaining and grumbling and wall leaning but ultimately wants to be merciful and forgiving
This one is mainly because people will never change their character away from a life of being a deranged villain criminal kleptomaniac arsonist unless they want to OOCly, so it mostly just comes off as a lot of cynical roleplay about characters- which isn't really what the character ACTUALLY is deep down. All of the sour, none of the knight is usually the outcome which can get depressing

 

[RunicScrawl]

True Dogmatic Unionist Purism
While Bernadette started out this way for a short time, I feel like I abandoned it just to get more roleplay and in the end, it was really detrimental. I still fear that if I revert her back to being a 100% purist I will be denied roleplay opportunities and miss out on a lot. With this I'd like to start gooning on abberants again, but this feels like an impossible task because there is already so many people gooning on them. I do not want to pile on what might very well be ooc stress. I know it just takes communication, but it's a communication I have weirdly been dreading.

Heavily Aligned with Knighthood Ideals
Kind of the same as the above, but with it the territory of going from a character who objectively had little ideals besides "murder is bad" to having many more moral rules and codes. I worry about staggering others when really this was a change I have wanted to make for so, so long.

Pro-Empire Soldier Posterboy
With this one I'm just, struggling to go about it. I would want there to be more nuance with her than simply putting all her trust and faith in the Crown conversationally but struggling to find ways to put it into practice action-wise besides saying 'for the empire' and then stabbing a criminal. Or just her Doing Her Job Good(enough?).

bingus have a good day massive chat im going back in my cave

 

[FutureTeller]

I absolutely adore this character study, and I really hope a lot of people make use of this so I can feel a little less alone about venting my frustrations about concepts, the setting, etc. ahgdegfsghegfhs.

While writing this, I think I just deleted like 4 paragraphs, because in the end it's just me raging and thinking about some issues I've been aware of and trying too hard to fix for about a month now. And by reflecting on what I wrote, and what I say I keep faceplanting over, I think I'm a step closer to fixing what has been bothering me so I can resume actually enjoying roleplay and being able to go for up to 6h of just having a solid flow to things. It eventually crops down to this.

• I want to play my character more consistently and loyal to their beliefs again. And these days, now that they're more extreme and settled into specific factions, that might mean less roleplay or mass-starting conflict somewhere suddenly. And that should be okay, it was okay when I started playing my character.
• I need to find a way to handle the toxicity you can find in certain groups when facing off against them/conflicting with them these days. I think I've become more sensitive to the demeaning, dumb or meta behavior, or maybe it's just become more saturated around me. Either way, I think I can learn to deal with that.
• I. Need. To. Stop. Scheming. For the love of god. I think I'm pretty good at it, I know how to gaslight people by telling believable stories, but it also just really takes the joy out of things for me. And I should be able to maintain that in what my character has become over a year. Or at least I can find a healthy balance.
• I need to get over my paranoia of people who are more Gray Morality-ish, as defined in this thread, and/or more competitive and optimized in stuff like crp. I like playing that classic freaky cryptid in the woods that makes a whole village crowd go out to hunt it with pitchforks and guns, as long as it feels like I was also respected in playing something scary, and not endlessly demeaned for taking the L, be it before or after the fight. I've become very jaded and am almost slipping into only doing this with friends now, which makes me a little sad. New faces and new ideas are exciting after all.
• I need to roleplay for my own sake again, instead of whatever group I'm currently managing, so on. Most of the above was not an issue when I did that at the beginning. It used to just be myself, and I could just focus on myself, how I executed playing the character and could shut everything else out.

None of these points are much about my character's perspectives and so on, because usually when my character had some kind of extreme outlook, I just committed to it anyway and had meaningful conversation everytime after my enemies/half of Crookback was done annihilating them. And that was fine. And I'd love to go back to that tbh, because it was a lot of fun. I just need to become less jaded again. Ty for this character study, Marty.

 

[Erzly]

The 'Calm' and 'Forgiving' Tenets being a thorn in my side.
The sort of RP I've been pursuing and getting the most meat out of, simply stops me from having Judy abide by these Tenets. I want my 'strict Dogma Unionist' portion of her character to be evident, but her intrepid emotional outbursts, fuelled by rage and creating lots of RP from it, and perhaps some of my own unwillingness to let stuff go, means I always fall short of sticking to these two Tenets.

Judy not always creating a sense of 'otherness' with those different to her, mages, and with Aberrant beings.
Now, I do believe I do this somewhat. Othering LITE. It's just sometimes more successful than others. I find myself getting a bit distracted sometimes, and not being able to chase the abjection that I've Roleplayed her out to have when she's seen some of the horrific forms of certain transformed characters, or even with every time she sees magic. She's meant to be a purist but sometimes I get a bit blasé with her reactions to magic, not even just because it's a friend doing such, just because I'm too lazy to go through the same thing every. single. time.

For Taal.
Same as those above. Judy, theoretically, should be performing 'immediate expulsion or termination of any Occult who step out of line, and the cleansing and curing of whatever can be cleansed and cured.' [sic] But with the current RP climate, I don't think this is at all possible without becoming Public Enemy Nr 1. Consequences will never befall certain characters, and it takes an OOC willingness to A. allow your character to be subjected to purity shenanigans, and B. actually be okay with your character changing in reaction to those actions. I don't consider much of the server to have those OOC prerequists, so I simply do not attempt it. I try. But not as much as how the character is designed to. Ideally she'd be capping every badmouthing occult in the head, but yeah, quick way to become the most hated player on the server.


It is 10am, I have not slept, if any of this makes no sense, do not call me mean things

 

[bahmboozled]

I may or may not edit this later, but this is just the biggest 'principle' that sits in my head.

Pushing for Estellon Agendas.
It is possible to do this, but it incurs direct confrontation with many groups: basically every religious faction, and also every person that's pro-Regalia. (because someone will link Allorn slavery back to Estellon worship, and it's not a perception that can be changed easily, as it is being enforced in lore e.g. Ghilland & Aseia. I think it faces the issue of Unionism having been likened to Christianity, as is slavery being praised in Estellon worship with Ghilland in it).

It boils down to the question of how to tactfully deal with (potential) dogpiling/mega alliances. The issue/restriction isn't helped by the fact that I'm trying to push for these agendas as an Afflicted character, and is exacerbated by the majority of the characters on Massive being morally gray. A Cahal/Vampire will be reviled no matter what they do, and it's understandable for people who fall in the line of 'gray morality' to react accordingly.

 

[IreliaRamora]

I think-- regardless of my character or character(s), it all boils down to one problem for me:

No matter what group I'm in, whether I'm with friends or complete strangers, I'm terrified of taking an extremist or harsh approach or line of opinions, because I'm terrified of actually upsetting people even accidentally. This is largely due to a long slew of personal troubles that I'm still working with on with myself. And I recognize it's not reasonable to always be the people pleaser- I'm not going to make everyone happy. I tend to be a very morally grey person, the one who mediates and looks at both sides. And genuinely- maybe I need to stop doing that when it comes to roleplay. I thoroughly enjoy playing my medic, Iranela, who does her best to help everyone and everything (even at her own detriment) but at the end of the day, it's absolutely unrealistic.

I joke about having grown a bit of a spine as of recent. Time to put it in action, eh?

Since this is going to end up being long, I'm going to spoiler each character that I want to delve into. The more, the merrier, because overly long introspection is fun. If I decide to come back and do shelved characters, I'll put them under another spoiler.

Some of these are going to be less principle based, and more "This character would be better if we added this to them." General ramblings.

Spoiler: Iranela di Ithania

Oh Ira. Sweet, poor, naiive trauma dump character. We love misery in this house.

• Actually find a mcfucking G O A L.
  • Initially, this was just to open and own a clinic. Congrats!! She did that. We did that. Woo! Check off the list. But now that she's unshelved and back in Regalia, I really need to find something to do with her. I have ideas- mostly with either running a Cahalic group, or trying to take over Crookback in some way shape or form. But I worry about my IRL time and commitments, and don't know what a reasonable amount of time is to dedicate to massive. A year ago when I started I nursed a rather bad addiction to this server, and I can't afford do to that again. Additionally, I have a hard time developing things *to* do. Staging hunts is easy, but when it comes to bigger plans, I struggle.
• Either find a side to be on and stick with it-- or be the neutral ground and accept the consequences. Stop being so flighty.
  • She was Primal Faithful. I struggled within the community, made some stupid decisions, and then veered away from it with her. Vampirism for all of 2 seconds. Now, a giant Cahalic arc. She's been all over the place, and I need to do my best to either portray her as a mediator who tries to see the best in everyone, or take a stance on one side. Playing the mediator can end up a little too much in the Grey category, but that's how she was designed. She was designed to be the mediator, and maybe I need to fall back into that role. Try to get every side off of eachother's throats, even knowing that it's futile and people are going to ridicule her for it. Either way, she bounces around WAY too much.
• Become the true medic you were made to be. Stop trying to be the best medic AND the best combatant.
  • She's always been a medic, and I love that about her. I love that she's been extremely stable in that fact. She has, and always will be, medically inclined. I'm a bit saddened by the alchemist update merging with tech, because it feels like it took a small bit away from her character, as actual alchemical concoctions and the systems within worked really well with my vision of her. However, I'm finding that I absolutely ADORE CRP, and I've become a CRP goon. I tried to sneak it into Ira so she didn't get roflstomped when she fought. But maybe I need to give up the fact that she's not going to be a huge fighter, or at least, not going to be the *best* fighter. It's just frustrating when both ICly and OOCly she can't protect people in the way she desires- direct action. Maybe I can do with a more subterfuge route instead.

Spoiler: Norr'aladryl

Now NORR'A. This lady has gone through a couple mentality changes as I work with her icly, because sometimes my ideas just don't work right off the back. That's okay. Not always going to nail something off the bat. I have eventual plans for her, but for now, let's stick with what we have in this moment.

• Stop thinking about plans, start pulling strings.
  • Sure, I can say "Yeah she's actually thinking of using you and backstabbing you" all I want, but until I follow up on it, that literally means nothing. Certainly, thinking on how the character is behaving internally is one thing, but acting is the other. And acting is the part I struggle with most. Maybe this will have to result in a lot of OOC communication where she starts 'using' her friends to further her goals, but we'll see about that. Re-read starting blurb, as that's what is stopping me.
• Lean into the Demonologist trait more than you have already. Give people a reason to fear or respect you.
  • This one is an ideal, but I don't feel like I have the proper tools to enact it. Maybe with the demonology update I'll have more avenues to work with. But for now? Consider how to make things scarier, how to lean into the demonically posessed and powerful role. Maybe this requires a bit more design change to how the demon functions for her, or something else entirely. This is more of an idea road block, and a potential design road block.
• Find something to rally against. And then seek to burn it down at the very core.
  • Given her current mentality- I want to start some genuine shit with the Fae knights. Raiding the vault is one thing, but I want to give their characters more of a reason to be worried. Maybe this forms in the form of random attacks, hunts, and bounties, but I should stop being the one hunted, and become the hunter. Once again- I'm terrified of pissing people off by targeting them 24/7. But hey, it would generate some great conflict.

I might add more to this later. I'm struggling to stay awake.

Spoiler: Raellevamn

I don't have much for her *yet*, because I haven't had the chance to play her a lot yet. But, here we go.

• Foster an absolute HATRED for Cahal, and Ferally VENERATE that which is Sanguine.
  • She was designed to be a vampire. And yet my brain is already romanticizing going on a 'what if she went sober lolololol' arc. Nope. Discard Exist, Embrace Void. Let's actually lean into one of the afflictions for once, wholeheartedly. But I never want to piss people off or go hard after one group for fear of burning ties with them, so this one gets hard when it comes to trying to actively pick on a group for IC reasons.

This one needs some character building TLC, and then she'll have more true problems. I would love the old template optional expansions, where you could go into more details on your character. Maybe I need to do that again.

 

[Ashurism]

Akurgal

1. Follow through on Asaredu Tenets
   1. Some of the tenets I feel like I can't roleplay correctly and if I try I always get this second voice in my head that makes me second guess myself and delete what I had type that I initially thought was accurate and then deciding it would be a wrong interpretation. Also some of them I find difficult to put into roleplay like Ambition, Forgivenes and Greed.
2. Seeking out dishonor and correcting it
   1. I feel like combat roleplay isn't my strong and finding something of dishonorable quality kind of ropes into CRP which I have a hard time hitting that sweet spot of if I should be detailed or when I should emote. I don't want to railroad a RP scenario and lead into bad blood with another person cause that could cut me off from rp.
3. Pro empire/Pro-Eronidas
   1. I'm confused since as an Asaredu follower, they have loyalty to bureaucrats an rulers but also I don't know how to represent the Pro-Eronidas besides sticking to the honor code. Being Pro-Eronidas feels like going against the empire since the empire has qualities that alot of Eronidas find dishonorable.
4. Pushing for the Eronidas Agenda
   1. There's not much to push for, the one thing that I could find to push for in the empire was dismantling the work camps on the Archipelago. Besides pushing for them to join the empire which is in the hands of the foreign ministry, I don't know how to make use of the few hooks we have in roleplay. Most of the time I just sit around rereading lore pages to see if I find something that I can use to add for culture/religion rp.

 

[Stellarrix]

I've been thinking a lot lately about where my character is, and where I'd like them to be. This study has led me in a good direction and really directed my attention to the glaring issues that I should really be taking more stock of. As such, I've come up with a couple of principles that I wish I could portray.

Spoiler: CAUTION: IT'S LONG.

Anti-Demon / Monstrosity Sentiments
I feel that my character should have more hardline stances on the Afflicted, namely Demonologists/Cahal/Vampires, with a particular focus on Demonologists. The issue is that I'm somewhat cowardly and don't particularly wish to be the one to kick over people's sandcastles, so to speak, when I run up and assail someone with a Demon Attendant who wasn't actually doing much harm. It takes a certain level of tact and intimate knowledge of the players in question to make that sort've conflict work, and I currently lack that knowhow, and I OOCly fear pursuing that knowledge because of the understanding that I will have to come to blows with someone who was, in essence, just enjoying an aesthetic that they enjoy.

Rediscovering Ambitions
This is a facet of my character that was once rather simple and effective, but certain events have led to it being almost impossible to truly represent. As an example, they were once the leader of a Mercenary Company, their ambition was fulfilling Contracts to acquire wealth, and that provided a healthy cycle of roleplay for me. Take contract, do the thing, get paid for it, acquire wealth. With the removal of such a system that simple goal had to give way to something more complex and character driven, as opposed to something motivated by a number on a spreadsheet, and admittedly it's something I've not quite discovered yet. Even writing this my character's main ambition is lost under a pile of smaller goals and OOC agendas that I need to fulfil to maintain my place.

Picking a Side
Meriyaan as a character is one mired in internal strife, internal strife that I haven't made external enough for others to see. I do not want people to pity the character, but I don't know how to present these issues to other people in a manner that isn't a sense of lowly "ohhh feel bad for me and make me feel better". The strife is borne of her Void-Silven birth, but her devotion to Sinnavei and the Estellon Faith as a whole, and deciding whether to accept what she is, or try to change that to fall into the Estellon fold more completely. This is a facet of her character that I've not brought up to enough people, because I'm unsure of how to go about it in a way that isn't an irritating cry for sympathy, and instead a way to explore the place a Void Silven has amongst other Estellon Faithful.

This is the intention! But I've found it almost impossible to achieve as there's multiple communities I'd like to be a part of on both sides of the spectrum, if I were more competent I'd make another character to indulge in both sides, but I'm not. So I'm stuck with one character who's stuck in the middle with no true dedications, which is inherently extremely damaging to my roleplay.

Deciding What They Are
My character's identity and skillset is murky at best, I find myself attempting to fulfil every role out of an inability to find others to fill in those positions for me. I want to play the DPS, the Tank, and the Support, and the resulting combination is a set of skills that doesn't really drive home the capable leader of adventurers and monster hunters I'd like them to be, but instead someone who's become so flexible in the field that they don't really belong or excel anywhere. This has a good bit of potential to be used as a point of development for my character that I'd again, not pursued due to not being able to find other warrior characters who truly philosophise over how they fight, why they fight, and what their role is.

A lot of these problems come as a result of my inability to take concrete stances on things, trying to play both sides or simply entertain all options laid before me but never really taking a single one and sticking to it.

My advice for those reading, and myself in a much greater sense, is pick one thing to excel at, and many others to be good at, don't get lost in the sauce and don't put all your eggs in one basket. It leaves you pretty lost and directionless, and it's an awful place to be.

 

[Susow]

Pro-Demon/Engaging without a crowd.
It's no secret, I am in love with the villains. I always love playing the bad guy but the spark to grow and get to where I'd like to be is extremely hard. From Virgo, to Batra to Mara/Marnokh all the names I've changed just trying to have a char that fits in so I could move on, I'd like my character to be a true Demonologist but also not get jumped every single second I'm out as I'm left to waiting out/getting healed again in order to resume what I want. From Altalar, to Kathar to Altalar and now Ailor, just trying to fit in and not be a crp addict is hard when non-allowed vigilantes or even regulars run up on my char and I'm forced to do some demon boss mode rp. On the side note it's hard to start small when every single time I go to a non-crowd, say a group of 1-3, there is always some form of communication that summons a crowd to face a "threat" that isn't doing much but existing for the moment.

Recovering Standing/Infiltration.
I'd love to have my char someday join a group as a demonologist just to infiltrate and find information about them for the purpose of either exposing, taking it down, or spreading demonology. The thing is my OOC habits/past gets in the way. People tell me because of my past I'm not wanted in this particular group, or in the rp. When it comes to crp they avoid me and say I'm a powergamer and because of my past they don't want to deal with me. Though I do have an ailor now with some facial issues, I can only keep my rp within crookback where I'm bound to get attacked just to have someone else go on with their concept. It gets really difficult to fit in when trying to take that step forward and I just get shut down, so infiltration is not an option right now.

Gathering of Demonologist.
I found nothing more exciting than gathering a group of demonologists for a ritual summoning of demons. The thing is my character is either engaging in a battle after some time of hiding or is exorcized and I'm left to wait a week to have his demonology traits back. It's hard to meet with others of the same path and spread what everyone hates/is attacking, so this is kind of a patience thing until I get to meeting others with similar ideas.

 

[PuffyPigeon]

Naaji
This is my mundane Qadir character who lives in the technician niche.​

1. Being an outright antagonist for occult individuals, their interests, and especially freedoms.
   • He's been part of the Hexenblood Circle for a while now and has a close friend who is a Silven. The friendships he has in the group would be a shame to sever - they're conducive to some fun roleplay.
2. Antagoning every Songaskia. All of them. :knife:
   • Not everyone wants to contend with intense conflict roleplay, especially when they could get dogpiled on by a group like the Hexenblood Circle in the process.
   • Songaskia are uncommonly played.

Cyrillian
My elder Teledden who is staunchly Allorn and pro-Magic.​

1. Enforce and reward the honoring of Allorn traditions and values.
   • I don't necessarily want to become some younger Altalar's babysitter or father figure, but that's usually where it ends up. I'd prefer a more business like but respectful relationship with other Altalar, lost or not.
   • I can't force change in other characters if the player wants to continue playing a dishonorable scoundrel in the eyes of the Allorn Empire.
   • Being a pro-slavery Altalar supremacist limits my roleplay options considerably.

 

[Barium_V9]

Bremen's a mixed bag, but I think I can come up with something. I'm not sure if I followed the prompt right anymore.

Defender of (Un)Death
The Orchestrion is sort of sizing up to be a defender of the Undead by happenstance of 'I made them better at fighting finally sort of' and they have connections at this point. There isn't a super wide threat specifically to Undead (yet) so this is more conceptual, but Black Walker Archon look to be a fun situation- hopefully I can act as a good rival of sorts to them! Part of the principle though would be their stance on Necromancers, which ideally is that they hate Necromancers: but also important allies and some of the few Geists/Ordial players happen to be Necromancers and I don't really want to exclude myself or other players from interaction and get clapped. But punching those who hunt Undead/Geist/other will be cool anyway.

"Music is my Religion"
I already half play that the Orchestrion isn't devout, not even to Unionism, and yet I feel that to some degree I'm still just playing the 'skating as a loose Unionist Undead for good boy points' which isn't incredibly interesting to me nor does anything for me. I guess there's still the old drilled concept from way back about Undead needing to be Unionist to exist, but that has changed alot. The idea that they're unaligned from a Faith Standpoint is also part of their viewing of other religions and their curiosities about those other religions and other people without exclusions to them (and not being fond of instantly calling someone a demon, etc). Maybe this is more of a personal thing rather than anything else though, actually, idk. I think they can agree with various ideas from various religions fine, I think is the gist though.

Empathy
The character started as a pacifist if anything, and that has changed. Maybe this one doesn't quite count anymore because most of my rp as of late as been kicking someone's ass and also getting my own ass kicked. Slower philosophical RP (alot to do with the above point, actually) would be fun again but I don't think the rp environment (or whatever) my character is in has much room for that. Kind of a big melee punch hard play music at you hit you over the head with an axe type of situation. I don't not-enjoy it, but, finding the right atmosphere for the Orchestrion to exercise their other points of interest that isn't just fighting would be nice again- but I can't tell if it's just past that point for the character and how they are now or not.

 

[SneakyLinguine]

Aeda- the Absolution Silven and Estellon Ordvaan

Seek out the unworthy and guide them to repentance
I tend to rely on people coming to Aeda for this sort of roleplay, instead of seeking them out myself. What it really comes down to is a lack of effort and drive on my part, that often transfers onto Aeda. Fun for me is synonymous with effortless. This also leads to Aeda letting things slide a little more than she should- even though she SHOULD be forgiving to a fault (which I think I convey well), she should still be more adamant on people actually changing their ways. It really comes down to my own apathy and "you do you babe" attitude coming through in Aeda a little too much.


Also, what non-Estellon person is going to listen to anything a little Exist freak has to tell them about what it means to be a good person? She can only try if they give her the time of day in the first place. I don't want other people to feel like they have to break character for this sort of rp to work.


Strive for perfection, never settle
This again has to do a lot with my own attitude in life- I'm very much a 'good-enough' kind of person. I don't necessarily have the drive needed to portray Aeda's perfectionism. I'm very happy staying in Floral Court and offering rp at the tree every day, but realistically Aeda should be getting out there and finding ways to gain more and more influence. I also don't really like telling other characters they aren't good enough, but I guess I could find ways to turn that into some fun mentorship-type rp.


Spread Estellon teachings
Active Ordvaan preachy stuff, like sermons, ceremonies, sacrifices etc. She should be going out there and telling everyone who has ears about how good Estellon is. I really just need to find ways to make that sort of rp more appealing- which to me, means simple and inclusive. I'm often turned off by overtly religious rp because of how grandiose and metaphorical and theological it's expected to be. I'm just not that kind of thinker. I see things for what they are- no deeper meanings or whatever. Comes back to my fun is effortless mentality, really

 

[GRIST_]

Hy'riss

1. Sticking to Ordial

I've had a really difficult time letting go of Draga Ifrit lore in full, so I've always included it in Hy'riss's mannerims. I'd like to do a better job of moving away from those mannerisms and devouting time into understanding Ordial lore. This will provide me with goals to work towards as well that are more aligned with what Hy'riss is now. I'm hoping this will help them stick to one place, rather than jumping around into random communities where I made no real connections or provided anything to their stories.

I had another point about antagonistic stuff but I'm having trouble putting it into words that make sense so I might come back to this later.​

 

[cosmoons]

Aaro Abansaddi: The blueblood poet

Seek to educate
Aaro is a scholarly Eronidas, a niche that's really hard to play out. He seeks to educate the masses about his specific ideas of what is right and wrong. This ties into the Eronidas honor code, though it's very difficult to "change" characters who don't want to be changed.

Overly flamboyant
Being a poet, I like to give Aaro a little flair, though while he is intended to be a Neutral Good character, this flamboyance can walk the line of him being a jerk, and making people not want to rp with me.

Strictly anti occult
I play him as being strictly anti occult, though it's very difficult to do so when his family and loved ones are mostly occult.

Scholarly build
He is a scholar, not really a warrior poet since I dislike most crp and the competitiveness of it all. This leads to him having a thin build and dressing femininely. This is really hard to stick to especially in a fantasy setting where there seem to be fights every day and everywhere you go.

The artist character
Above all else, Aaro Abansaddi is a poet, speaking in grandiose terms and dressing extravagantly. He's meant to be seen as an interesting character and one that you should icly want to pick apart, though he's become a bit of a punching bag character for his friends and family. I'm not sure if this is because the niche I've picked is so difficult to play, but instead of alluring and fascinating, Aaro is useless and pathetic.

 

[Kale_Vera]

Though my character is fairly new, I've already picked up some things that are there by design, some by accident. I will openly preface this with saying I love playing morally grey characters, and my current character is one while my previous one was strictly good. Still, there's some extreme-things i dont go for, mostly out of personal preferance and being uncomfy with certain things - and that's okay and I recognise it as such.

kinda long so spoilered.

Spoiler: Rayisa

1: Unionism and profs - but cannot be bothered to actively hate when no harm has been done to her.
- This was done by design. I personally dislike 'othering' rp, which as my most recent college research essay has brought to realization on the term. direct quote from it would be ''Freedom of speech also means the freedom to express hate. Hate speech circulates widely on social media (Awan 2016; Mondal et al. 2018; Zempi and Awan 2016) and the basis of such activity is online othering.' What is online othering? Does it have any relation to globalisation? According to Rauf (2021), 'Harmer and Lumsden (2019) conceptualize 'online othering' as an array of prejudiced behaviors that occur online such as islamophobia, misogyny, racism, etc.' '
Absolutely no hate to others that do this (within roleplay bounds, entirely different if its irl.), it's just not my cup of tea. I play a lazy unionist that probably wouldn't have been an unionist if a wisdom pack didn't require it + her family PLUS her culture. While you could argue that othering is not directly related to unionism, it's kind of become one big circle that co-exists with the other. It brings no detriment to me and the character to not target the occult though, and I stand by that.
2: Intelligence/wisdom-heavy character, but being lazy, + the way that events are designed.
- My character is not a fighting type, she has a mech for that. I designed her to be a lazy but intelligent whacko that just wants to sleep, but when situations occur, there's not much room for the intelligence to shine when everything is being speed-run and the only course of action is to hit anything you see. Again, no hate, it's actually hilarious, but at some point it does get a bit "i dont think this will change anytime soon, am i wasting my time having a wisdom-orientated character?" It will not stop me from playing the character, not at all, but it probably will make it a bit dull/defeat the purpose. One could argue that a custom kit could solve this, but.. if i need a custom kit to play a character to their full extent, thats kinda gross. same goes for when i tried to play a blind knight, it was hard and i had to shoot myself through a lot of hoops for it to be possible/viable in any means. being told 'oh theres biotics or u can have a special eye' doesnt help. not to complain, obvi, but those sort of things does hinder the character progression overall and has led me to shelf the blind knight because its too much effort and not enough enjoyment from playing that comfort character. i want this to be a reachable goal, though, where rayisa can just sit back and comment on how dumb characters are for just randomly hitting a stone over and over, or solve a problem entirely by using her mundane hacking skills/mundane intelligence, without needing to hit something in the process.
3: just wants to sleep, man, but also a menace.
again, Rayisa is lazy. she just wants to sleep, i don't know how many times i need to mention that to get it across that it is her main goal. yet she's also ambition driven - she just wants to achieve things in the most low-effort style possible. at the same time, she's morally grey - if not actually feeding into the Flawed Character trope, she is actually sociopathic and apathatic. still, i wouldn't consider her entirely 'evil' - though she does lean more that way than entirely in the middle. does she actively commit warcrimes? sure, in secret. does she also like having a cute chat with a cute geist and promising to protect them? also yes, but i won't cover that part up. still, the part that makes this unattainable is that my own allignment makes it hard for her to do absolutely atrocious things that i envisioned her doing. maybe it can be done in progs, where i dont actively write out and re-think about the direct consequences of those actions, plus also trying to keep in mind that i want this to be a long-term character, but overall i shouldnt rely on other factors to drive the character to do the goals I set out for her to do. maybe it'll come in time for the character, but this is definitely a personal problem i need to come to terms with to get that happy little villain itch i want.

 

[Reading5993]

Dominic
1. Might makes Right
If someone is in power then they are moral. Those who resist their authority are immoral. While this has been pretty easy to do with Reynaud and the truth ministry considering I'm a part of the purist com OOCly, I worry how I'm going to stick with this when Alexander returns. If he were to decide Therese and all the ministry are criminals, that would put me in an awkward situation considering I play a corruption silven who just really wants to be near those in power, but don't want to just cut and run away from all of my OOC acquaintances.
2. The Crown Belongs to Another
Dominic is not meant to be in charge, he's meant to be someone's servant or assistant. While I've found a good com of players happy to drive rp through their characters with support from mine through events or fulfilling orders, I worry this might make me dependent on others for rp. The char exists to get other characters to engage in conflict and disregard morality, to be corrupt, not to commit acts of corruption himself.
3. Nothing Binds the Powerful
Dominic tries to get honorable or powerful characters to bend or disregard parts of their moral code, to briefly commit some act that creates conflict with others and challenges others perception of the character. This really does have to be OOCly negotiated ahead of time since it usually creates repercussions for the character even if Dominic is helping them IC, so that is a barrier to this type of rp. You can't just go up to someone irp and get them to violate their character's principles, it requires a long-term IC and OOC understanding.

 

[Halsi]

Noble elitism

Fabienne is of noble birth and it's an integral part of her character design. Her haughtiness and arrogance mostly stems from that, and it would logically never make sense for her to walk into a bar somewhere in Arena Court and interact with low-born commoners, let alone the Occult. It's a flawed concept, especially now since the pool of noble players is so small compared to two years ago, and it's very detrimental to the RP opportunities available to me. I've had to let go of it on many occasions nowadays to not completely isolate myself from any roleplay, but it has also made her feel very out of place in a lot of scenarios at the same time.​

Being a paragon of courtly values and social etiquette

I think the noble scene has currently progressed to a point where the adherence to protocol doesn't matter as much anymore like it once used to. The only penalty you get now for breaking protocol is the whining of some prim snobs, and that can get stale pretty quick. I just hate to be that asshole who constantly points out very trifling flaws in a character's behaviour, and while I did try to fulfil this role at a certain point, I've started to let it go more recently just to not have people avoid my character because they're expectant that she'll just bitch about protocol again. It's pretty sad when players actively avoid you like the plague just because they expect a bad interaction to come out of your roleplay.​

Holding onto her anti-Sanguine sentiments (and rat out her shady vampire husband)

The Vampire occupation in 2021 put Fabienne through hell and she will forever hold a loathing hatred towards the Sanguine, but with her husband now literally being a big bad edgy vampire crime lord it's been very difficult to navigate this. I don't want to be selfish and keep kirishark from playing something they really enjoy, but I don't want to give up Fabienne's relationship with Florian either because I really like roleplaying with kirishark. Up until now we've come to the agreement that Fabienne is just blissfully unaware of Florian's vampirism and the family's shady underground business, but with Florian 'missing' and Hugo being a state criminal it's becoming virtually impossible to actually roleplay with each other without Fabienne knowing about her husband's shady business. It's hard! If I held onto this principle, and Fabienne discovers the entire hoopla surrounding Florian, she would rat him out and hand him over to the government, but I don't want to do that to kirishark. And it would also mean the end of their marriage. ​

 

[TheHitchHyker]

Madeline
1. Bruno Bucciarati-type
As I was forced out of her original idea as an anti-death undead (doctor zombie), I was made to find a new niche for her. A niche, that came out to be the undead soccer mom. I've come under scrutiny on occassion for neglecting the other ordial elements as time have gone on, but I stand by my stance that Madeline's focus is on her kin. Ensuring their afterlives are good will ensure her afterlife as good.
2. Do no harm, take no shit.
Now, her original teachings remain true but they've drastically changed. Originally, she was a thanatophobic pacifist, who would either outright avoid combat or do anything possible to end it, seeing most fights as unnecessary. However now, She will never start shit, but will always end it. Growing a more level had as more comes to test her patience, she has come to a more diplomatic approach to things, always attempting negotiations before fighting, for instance when she did such during the whole Haqet arc of crookback, she was the only one who showed up to the negotiations without intent of bloodshed.
3. Stick it to the man!
As Madeline's entire character was forcibly warped in order to adapt to her new way of life, my own actual beliefs as someone rather anti-establishment have bled into her quite significantly. She despises the government, for putting it's boot on top of those less fortunate, and for restricting many for no reason. She doesn't often show it, but she holds much contempt for the "wrathful iron fist of the law".

 

[AtticCat]

GWENFREWI MHARTAIN, AKA WINIFRED MARTH

Supporting the Regulation of Occultism, while being a practicing Mage.

Gwen is quite an old played character, who has (for the majority of her being) been a born Mage, although hiding in plain sight among the Wirtem Purists. Now that she has finally publicized that she is a Mage, it has made it increasingly harder for her to decide whether she is meant to be fighting against Occult Regulations (such as the Truth Ministry) or remain supportive of the State and the once more increasing choke hold around Magi that is likely to come.

What becomes most difficult is OOCly I struggle with the decision of do I want her to give up her magic, that I spent so long building up to do, so that she remains mostly Purist or do I want her to give up on her whole friend group and beliefs so that she can freely practice without guilt, and remain involved with the 'community' of magic-users, such as her twin brother, Cadwyn. ​

KUASHAN SHAO

Rebuilding herself after the Many Incidents. (Vampirism, criminality, etc etc etc)

After being a menace on society for the last couple of months, Kuashan has finally been captured. She has been whittled down to nothing- no opportunities, a horrible reputation, and a lack of paths to go on outside of whatever Therese Braunschweiger and Riftan Vaedra do to her. The biggest issue that I have here is I don't actually know what to do with her to begin with. She's still a fairly new character and has already been dragged all over the place and made into a horrible attempted murderer, so. I guess we'll just see where the road takes us. ​

 

[essentialess]

I may or may not edit this later, but this is just the biggest 'principle' that sits in my head.

Pushing for Estellon Agendas.
It is possible to do this, but it incurs direct confrontation with many groups: basically every religious faction, and also every person that's pro-Regalia. (because someone will link Allorn slavery back to Estellon worship, and it's not a perception that can be changed easily, as it is being enforced in lore e.g. Ghilland & Aseia. I think it faces the issue of Unionism having been likened to Christianity, as is slavery being praised in Estellon worship with Ghilland in it).

It boils down to the question of how to tactfully deal with (potential) dogpiling/mega alliances. The issue/restriction isn't helped by the fact that I'm trying to push for these agendas as an Afflicted character, and is exacerbated by the majority of the characters on Massive being morally gray. A Cahal/Vampire will be reviled no matter what they do, and it's understandable for people who fall in the line of 'gray morality' to react accordingly.

Click to shrink...

Pushing for Estellon Agendas

This is a principle I struggle with, too, on Titania! I'd love to push for Estellon Agendas IC in more depth rather than just sharing pro-Exist dogma, but I'm uncomfortable when the Allorn slavery aspect comes up in roleplay. It's something I clam up on. Also, there are very few characters you can share ideas with as actively Afflicted and have it matter because that just immediately cements the religion as too evil/off-bounds for morally grey characters because of a Cahal associated with it.

Round-the-clock Exist fanaticism

I'm in this tough spot playing a character with many dangerous convictions (Pro-exist magic abuser, Cahal, demonology apologist, and anti-everyone that thinks she's not the victim). Thus, the circle of characters she can positively interact with is small. Conflict RP with usually Titania relies on her starting issues and then her allies defending her evil deeds in combat. Eventually, you reach the threshold where you're constantly attacked by various super-alliance groups. For this reason, a good few of the Exist-fanatic rpers are intentionally laying low for a while, me included, and recovering from RP burnout. Yet, without them around there's less batshit crazy things to pull off. If I could constantly do crazed cult RP, that'd be great, but it's untenable because you can't expect responses to be gradual or one at a time. It comes full force and gets tiring and unmanageable. FOR NOW... WE PLAY DEAD.

There's still fun lowkey schemes and plots we're weaving together though! So, lying low is good for a bit.

 

[Cipherition]

Salem

• Antagonize Religious Players
  • I have Character Bleed disease. Combined with my inability to read tones over text and overthinking, conflict RP is a mixed bag of emotions. I don't like spinning the wheel of 'do the ooc players hate me, or am I reading into this too far'. Salem's belief system is very 'why do you worship this deity if they are inactive/dead/do nothing for you'. Some people don't like that. Actually, most people don't like that. Faith can't really be 'argued'. Salem shouldn't be the postergirl for 'hello would you like to hear about how your religion is shit and i dont understand it'? Should probably warp this into maybe a more empathetic standpoint. 'Ok. I don't get it. Tell me more.'
• Selfish
  • Salem was/is built to be selfish. She cares little about anything else than her own gain. But for others, it's not fun to have that RP when you know you're being used. Might be something I have to work on.
• Control of any kind is bad/ANARCHY ANARCHY/Anti-Truth Ministry/Anti-Nobility
  • See first point and tack on the classic 'limits my roleplay pool significantly' and add on sprinkles of 'crp makes me break out in hives and tears'

i might come back to this later after i get my coffee, but this is basically it.

 

[SevenBirds]

Faran - Resolution Silven with a complicated history in Petal/Floralcourt

Spoiler: Spiky Yanar

Active Mediator
This is the goal/principle I've been working most strongly on lately, trying to find my footing playing a new twist on an old character and trying out an Affliction I haven't played with before. Ideally, her nature should push her to get involved in all kinds of conflicts, whether that's people fighting in the street or conflict with the government or whatever else. I do think there's space for her to be able to resist her nature by choosing to not get involved with a conflict even if maybe she wants to, but it should be more uncomfortable and distressing, not something she can just say "I don't want to deal with this" and casually ignore. I would also like to work on her being a bit more relentless in the pursuit of peace and repaired relationships, rather than eventually just being like "Alright, fine, I tried" and giving up. Sometimes this is just because I'm tired and don't want to deal with it OOCly, which I think is fine, but there should still be more evident negative effects ICly.
As others have mentioned before, the barriers to this are primarily just because I know that I and other players are here to have fun, and it turns out that relentlessly bothering strangers with attempted mediation is not actually all that fun for anyone involved. Discussing conflicts with characters and players I already know and that already know Faran is more fun because both I and my character are more familiar with and invested in the others, so there's both more context (making for more layered interactions) and higher stakes for finding a way to make things work. I'm working on expanding her social circles somewhat so there's more reason to be involved in further-reaching disputes, but it's slow going because I still prefer to establish a few strong relationships rather than many shallow ones, and trying to establish many strong relationships takes a lot of time.
Additionally, I don't have a whole lot of information about Resolution in general beyond the blurb on the Silven page, so my portrayal of that kind of Silven is mostly based on my own guesswork. Interacting with other Resolution Silven, or even the Arken itself, might help clarify exactly what it is she should be doing, but for now, it's mainly trial-and-error.

Pacifism
For those that knew Cielo-Faran way back in the day, she was originally a staunch pacifist but was semi-radicalised ICly and, although rarely being involved in outright violence, definitely eventually started to fight more often and would turn a blind eye to those committing violence in the name of "the greater good". Getting back to her principles of non-violence has been a long journey that she's still working towards, but ultimately one that I think is important for her as a person, as well as aligning with her attachment to Mother Mana and with her Arkensire. I've mostly navigated this so far by taking a "fighting only in defense" stance, but that in itself is exactly what ICly pulled her down the rabbit hole as her mentality went from "self-defense" to "retaliation" to "pre-emptive destruction". While I could possibly see a Resolution Silven finally turning to violence as a last-ditch effort to solve the problem (since you can't fight if you're dead, or at least beaten up enough to not cause conflict any more), ultimately that probably just raises even more problems, and so I don't think it should be considered a viable option for her.
The most obvious obstacle is just that violence is a fairly common threat in Regalia, so never fighting for any reason is difficult, and the drive to protect others has long been an integral part of her character, so standing by while a friend is under threat seems out of character. I've partially tried to remedy this by intentionally putting her skills primarily in healing and support niches that allow her to protect others and herself while doing minimal damage to an opponent, but it's a difficult balance to strike when a character is both walking into conflicts and doesn't want to use violence even when threatened.

Zero Tolerance of Cahal and Sanguine
After going through all that she has, Faran does not have any trust or sympathy for either Sanguine or Cahal, viewing them as basically the same kind of evil to be cured if possible or driven away if not. Like the mediation point above, this is a semi-consistent principle, but often lapses into just a frustrated and irritable grumbling about them while not actually doing anything about it. While I think her dislike of these afflicted shows up even when it's ICly or OOCly inconvenient, I think someone that really believes them to be soul-destroying curses should do more than just argue with people who think they're actually not that bad. Exactly how to go about doing that without stirring up more conflict, though, is a question to try to figure out. I don't know yet whether her loathing of Sanguine and Cahal outweighs her innate dislike of conflict or vice-versa.
I think the predicament I find myself in here is similar to others who play some kind of anti-Occult characters - consistently being anti-something makes it difficult to engage in RP with your friends that are enjoying engaging with those things. A lot of the time, I opt for handwaving away things like Brood status or suspicious behavior or verbal jabs in favor of not derailing RP or keeping my friends from having fun doing what they enjoy, but this comes at the expense of my character attending a party with a vampiric brood or failing to follow-up on a lead about a suspected Cahal just because I OOCly don't want to ruin other people's fun and don't want to have to avoid large chunks of the server population.

Religious Balance
Similar to above, IC interactions and stated beliefs have very strongly pulled Faran away from the Estellon religion and religious fanatics in general, buuuuut also she's still intrinsically tied to Exist beings through being both Yanar and Silven. Ideally, I would like her to find a balance between accepting her own nature as Exist-touched and adopting a religion that aligns well with her values (which, weirdly enough, Estellon doesn't really.) This wouldn't necessarily translate into rejecting all aspects of her previous religion or shunning those that still adhere to it, but I would like to get to a stronger place than a lapsed-cultural-Estellon that honors one figure and just pays begrudging lip service to the rest.
The challenge I've run into here is that of the other religions she's come into contact with and might consider converting to, most of them aren't really all that keen on the Exist and/or magic and don't tolerate syncretism too well (which is a problem because she does have an attachment to Mother Mana.) At the moment, I'm having her be mostly irreligious, just with some lingering cultural values and worship of Mana, but also being open to values of other religions and rejecting those of her own that she doesn't like. This works well enough in some ways, giving her some flexibility to make decisions for herself without worrying too much about what an authoritative religion thinks she should be doing, but I feel like it also kinda muddies the waters a little bit and doesn't give her a clear identity.

Nishtara - Gallovian-cultured Devata Slizzar

Spoiler: Snake Nerd

Pursuit of Knowledge
A core aspect of Nishtara's character is that they are seeking to learn as much about the world as possible during their long lifetime, taking interest in everything from empire-spanning histories to the local gossip being spread on street-corners, and so they should be seeking out new things to learn at all times. While my own natural curiosity does often drive this, my preference for comfortable slice-of-life stuff sometimes gets me stuck in casual filler conversations with no real purpose. I find this type of RP relaxing, which is why I do it, but I think Nishtara should ideally always have a plan, always be fishing for information, always taking what they learn and storing it away in their mind. I think one thing that I could do better in this regard would be to have some personal schemes going, so new information is more likely to be relevant to something or other, but I also haven't yet figured out a strong enough identity for the character to come up with anything for them to scheme about. I don't think they would have to be scheming about geopolitics or the rise and fall of empires, but scheming ways to bolster a friend's reputation or spread dissent against a threatening law or even just how to bake a better-tasting cake would be better than my often-aimless wandering.

Instinct for Manipulation
This is a tricky one because neither I nor Nishtara are actually all that interested in manipulating people, especially to their detriment. I don't want to interfere with other people's fun, so unless I've negotiated with someone OOCly about interfering with their character, I typically prefer to just let others do their own thing. But I do still want to acknowledge the fact that this character is in fact a being born to be secretive and manipulative, and even if they don't have much interest in the Great Game, I think that some of that nature should still shine through, even unconsciously. The ideal I have in my head is that, although not really malicious or actively seeking harm on others, Nishtara sees the short-lived people around her as being somewhat lesser than fellow Slizzar, and so lying to them or manipulating them isn't really that big of a deal. My problem is that this feels icky to play and I OOCly want to be friendly and helpful rather than manipulative.

Old Gods Devout
Yeah, here I go again with weird contradictory character concepts. This is maybe a little less of a like "this is what the character design should ideally include" and more "this is what I'm interested in roleplaying", but it is important to me that Nishtara has ties to both their nature as Slizzar and the culture and values of the place they were raised. Most of the Old Gods values actually line up decently well with their values, but the taboo against deceit and lying is a challenge to avoid when playing a shapeshifter. I've mostly been taking this challenge IC and just have them try to technically avoid lying where possible and really stop to think about whether a lie is worth it before saying it, but I would like to have another Old Gods worshipper to kinda be a mentor/work things out with, but that requires first establishing a strong enough relationship with them to out themselves as Slizzar.

 

[Gwyndo]

Vharse | My idiot Kathar who wants to punch you

Kathar and Void Elitism

The only thing Vharse doesn't agree with in The Dread Empire is slavery, and in all other ways he's 100% Pro-Kathar and Pro-Void. He's not bright or patient enough to "play the game" properly, so he resorts to magical violence and brutality. Though, same with the Exist side of things, the circle of characters who are absolute Void Villain "Let's not play nice" type Fanatics is really small and Vharse can easily make enemies out of other Kathar who're far more chill than he is.

Vharse - and I - want to see other Kathar adopt a less civil approach to things and embrace chaos and fighting a little more, mainly because my favourite RP I've ever had was back when Kathar (at least the ones I hung out with) were extremely threatening. I loved Phoebe's Kaahl for example.

I'm trying to foster a similar vibe with my own little Kaahl, but it's hard.​

What the fuck did you just say to me?

Now people will ICly make smug remarks towards Vharse, they'll slander his culture, insult his race and religion, his beliefs and his magic and all sorts of things he cares about- but not everyone who does that also wants to deal with the natural reaction Vharse would have, which is to try stab them.

I'm not super witty or sharp OOC but when I insult or provoke people IC I'm 100% up for them slapping me silly and dealing with the consequences - it's the "find out" half of the RP.

Vharse is a criminal, he's supposed to be a relatively dangerous person. He has a "Talk-Shit, Get-Hit" mentality, but some people just want to talk and provoke. I try not to be too Aggro, but it's hard to realise someone doesn't want to instigate a fight when they say things to Vharse which would 100% start a fight.
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Literally show no pity

Vharse, due to his upbringing as a child-soldier in the Dread Empire, has become quite sadistic and immoral, and when violence is involved he should really be especially brutal -- but I OOCly don't really like dog-piling people or interrupting their fights to ambush them or outnumber them. Nor do I like performing attacks IC that are really nasty, like the whole "I stab you through the back of your knees" thing I used to see near all the time.

I often find myself not doing something because, OOCly, I don't think it'd be fun to be on the receiving end of it - though my reward for this is often to be on the receiving end of it lmao.

I don't especially mind having it done to me to be completely honest, but I do have Vharse hold back a lot when, realistically, he'd be extremely dishonourable and cruel.​