[ SECRET POST #124 ]

[grayout.livejournal.com]

⌈ Secret Post #124 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Posting for Liz!

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 26 secrets from Secret Submission Post #018.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, [ 1 2 ] not!secrets, 0 not!fandom.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Thursday, May 10th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: Here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That was my problem as well. My friend was a bit older than me, and the RPs we did were all technically 'original', so it was a bit harder to realize quite how Sueish a lot of her female characters were since there were no 'canon' characters for her to overshadow - but by the time I realized it, she was obviously getting very sensitive about her writing and receiving crits, even friendly ones.

The end result? I had no idea how to tell her that the beautiful, arty, purple-eyed Black Sorceress who was also a supposedly sweet and beautifully innocent Priestess with amnesia and a dramatic angst past involving scientific experiments and beautiful teenage heartbreak wasn't quite as well-rounded a character as she appeared to imagine. It didn't help that the character in question quite literally got away with murder, had the most awesome array of special powers of specialness out of anyone in the cast, and everybody bar nobody loved her and thought she was amazing and hated her boyfriend - my character - for not being good enough for her sacred Sue self. She was always the best at everything and the center of attention, her Legitimate Angst topped everybody else's and, though she was both extremely manipulative and a horrible bitch a lot of the time, it was never her fault.

My friend loved this character: she thought she was really awesome. Maybe there was never anything I could have said to help matters.

As for your own friend, I wouldn't recommend outright stating that her characters are setting the old Patent Sueometer screaming - that way disaster lies. I would suggest (if you feel confident enough that she won't get mad) perhaps mentioning a couple of things she might like to work on. I tried this approach and my former friend didn't get the hint, but yours might, if you put it in the right way? I can't be any more helpful than that, because I never got round to explaining to my friend quite why her characters were starting to strike me as so irritating.

And maybe you should have, but how do you say things like this without hurting someone's feelings? I never quite managed to work out the answer to that one, but I wish you luck with it. :)

[deidarachan.livejournal.com]

Gahh... That's just like how hers was! Only, she had a tendency to invite her psychotic brother to family events, and not get it when everyone else, who'd been screwed over by him a million times, objected. The littlest disagreements would send her character running off crying, and the NPCs would chide my character for "upsetting her again". The whole game just HAD to revolve around her, and she was never ever the fault of anything. It got downright irritating.

She had several characters, but the trend remained. A cold, aloof demon princess chick who gets upset or angry over the littlest things, and she'd have the pre-existing canon characters coo over her and stick up for her when she's sad, or get out of her way without complaints when she was mad, just going "Oh, that _____, always so tough! Be careful not to mess with her!"

I'd try to subtlely tell her that a lot of the situations she'd insist on were ridiculous, but her reaction to any negative feedback tends to be either completely ignoring it or getting angry.

She really is a nice girl, and a good friend, but... Yeesh. Her roleplaying skills could use some work.

I don't wanna upset her, but I think I might try with a few pointers next time we RP... Or maybe I should show her a link to a site that gives tips with that sort of thing.

[the-angelic-sin.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've really understood any of the RP secrets until I read your (Anonymous's) reply. Maybe the chat room ones I took part in were actually pretty good after all. D:

I'd be tempted to read through that roleplay, honestly... it just seems like something that should be read...