Have you ever experienced character transference?

Ever met someone in real life who reminds you of a character you like, and you immediately like them?

No, because most of my RP characters are non-human and I never think of them as human, and the human characters I do have tend to be from outrageous RP/fantasy scenarios so it's hard for me to think of them when dealing with ordinary people in an ordinary situation. :O

Ever find yourself thinking about how your character would respond to your every day life and situations and play it out in your mind?

Rarely, because of above.

Have you ever noticed that you've picked up qualities of a character that you've been roleplaying as?

YES. All the time. It happens a lot that I project to the character and then the character projects back to me and it's an awkward cycle of the character slowly become me and vice versa. I think this is probably why a lot of my characters inevitably turn into nihilist assholes. <_<

Have you ever developed feelings (friendship or otherwise) for your roleplay partners through the act of roleplaying?

Friendship, I guess, though I think this stems from the amount of interaction/friendly discussion/general chats I end up having with regular RP partners over the years. It's natural that we become friends if we like writing together. It's really not much to do with our actual characters, though it's typical that our characters have a decent relationship or we wouldn't have as much reason to write together, I guess??

 

I understand you want to hear stories about how a character influenced how you feel about someone else...

I don't roleplay. I write for mutliple characters that are not me or even resemble me. Of course there are elements I can sympatise with, or understand better, but I don't 'become' my characters.

No. I do not experience character transference.

But yes. I have met great people through writing, and if I had not joined a writing group, I would not be living with that guy I met, who kinda blew me away with his writing (not his character, his awesome writing grabbed me and grabs me still). Fortunately we happened to share much more than just a fondness for Star Trek and writing fun stuff. The writing was just the way we met.

My characters to me grow into their own entity. I don't go around finding bits of people's personalities and compare them to my fictional characters. I don't much 'like' my characters in the sense that I would befriend them anyway. So if I ever did meet someone who reminded me of my pirate captain, or Five's insane cowboy, I would probably be very very wary.

 

Ever met someone in real life who reminds you of a character you like, and you immediately like them?
My neighbor's granddaughter looked like a child version of a character I had at the time. It was rather strange. I think that's it for real life people though.

I have had issues with the playbys I have used for characters. I've used a lot of characters from the Fire Emblem series, so I wouldn't be able to play those games. It'd be hard to take them seriously.

Same goes for actors. I tried watching Rome. However, I use Kevin McKidd and James Purefoy in a roleplay together. I couldn't get through the first few episodes. Too much internal "What are you doing?!" or "Oh, that is just wrong."

Ever find yourself thinking about how your character would respond to your every day life and situations and play it out in your mind?
Yes, I have.

Have you ever noticed that you've picked up qualities of a character that you've been roleplaying as?
I don't think I have.

Have you ever developed feelings (friendship or otherwise) for your roleplay partners through the act of roleplaying?
Definitely friendship. I like ooc communication, and friendship develops, especially when you are roleplaying together for months or years. I wouldn't really think of it as transference though, since it happens through ooc communication.

 

I don't much transfer stuff from characters... I sometimes find myself staring at PB's I play (or are in a game I'm in) as they're playing a role and going "ok that is not So And So omggg why is this FUNNY..."

Sometimes having been in an alternate mindset with a character can help me understand why/how some one else will react. I accidentally ended up in one IC-situation that was very much like a disagreement I was having with my BFF- only my character's side of it was way more like hers in RL than my own. And then I was like "... oh, ok, I see how this might be annoying now..." I think it hastened an end to our argument (thought it was pretty minor anyway but still... the faster you stop arguing with your BFF the faster you go back to having fun with them, right?)

 

• Ever met someone in real life who reminds you of a character you like, and you immediately like them?

Nope.

• Ever find yourself thinking about how your character would respond to your every day life and situations and play it out in your mind?

Oh yeah. When I was taking care of my nephew several years back, I thought about what kind of parents each of my characters would be or how they would react to having to take care of a baby. I've sometimes thought about how a couple might act while grocery shopping together when I'm grocery shopping. I get a lot of ideas through everyday life that branch out into full blown plots, actually.

• Have you ever noticed that you've picked up qualities of a character that you've been roleplaying as?

Nah, more the opposite? I tend to put tiny parts of myself into characters. Sometimes it's something very small, like I have a character who loves anything peach flavored, like me. Sometimes it's a lot bigger, like I have an asexual character whose thought process when it comes to sex is pretty much my own. I also pick and choose a trait or two from people I know and put it into my characters. The characters feel more real to me when they have a relatable trait. Sometimes it even helps me understand the person with the trait a little more.

• Have you ever developed feelings (friendship or otherwise) for your roleplay partners through the act of roleplaying?

Only friendship. I have never felt anything romantic for a roleplay partner.


I also wanted to add that I most definitely do not feel like I can't take a character or celebrity "seriously" just because they don't act like my character in their source material (animated) or in roles that they play (actors/etc). Before I started using animated playbys (I don't anymore, but I did for a couple of years), I had a hard time getting past a character NOT being the character they were from the source material. Yes, it actually disturbed me to see people using say, Ichigo from Bleach and calling him something like Daisuke Yamamoto. It really annoyed me and I hated it. But after using animated playbys, I got past that and with it, I lost all the weird feelings.

I have also never had problems with celebrities portraying different roles, as I feel that's their job. I've never gone, "Oh no, Channing Tatum can ONLY be this one guy and NOBODY else." I can comfortably watch any celeb in any role without going "That's SO not something my character would do!" They're still playing a role when they play my character to me, so I don't see that celeb as MY character, just a person playing the character.

 

I can say I've sometimes wondered how a certain character would react to something - but not to any large extent. I've only ever played human characters briefly, and as my current characters are animals, it's less likely ( I think, anyway ) to have a 'transference' thing.

I've met lots of friends through roleplaying! It's been awesome c: I think when I was younger, I probably had a crush on one or two of them, but it was the typical kid crush thing, haha.

 

I have created characters and then later realised because I associated them with a real life person I couldn't write them anymore (I had stopped writing them before I had this realisation). That, in a lot of ways, is true transference, and had the character been a therapist they might have told me I had "had a breakthrough". :P

 

• Ever met someone in real life who reminds you of a character you like, and you immediately like them? Not really people in real life, but people in movies and on TV.

• Ever find yourself thinking about how your character would respond to your every day life and situations and play it out in your mind? All the time! Especially if the character is especially active or has a very intense story. There is also this point of character development where I start wondering how they will react to everything. I think it helps you know them better, helps them become layered, more complex and much more interesting. Easier to write as well!

• Have you ever noticed that you've picked up qualities of a character that you've been roleplaying as? Yes, it's usually a character that I've been playing a long time. After I have typed their attributes, mannerisms and speech fifty thousand times I find myself acting, moving and talking like them. It's an interesting phenomenon, and not wholly unpleasant!

• Have you ever developed feelings (friendship or otherwise) for your roleplay partners through the act of roleplaying? Yes. I married one. It did not work out, needless to say, but it taught me a lesson. I never, never, let it get to me to that point again. And if it does, I talk it out with the partner, expressing my fears and it usually dissipates it!

 

I met my best friend through online role playing. It moved from online to real life. Now I'm a part of her life, and I love her kid.

I also met someone, a girl, who was scarily like my friend's character. I had the realization when I was drunk and hanging out with this girl. She was telling me her life story, saying certain things exactly that of the character. I was incredibly shocked. But I later realized that the girl wasn't entirely like the character, and I kind of stopped being friends with her. However, I still wonder if there are people exactly like our characters. There have to be, of course.

 

I met some of my best friends on online roleplaying. It's definitely a good way to meet friends.

As far as liking people who are like a character I like? Yeah it's happened to me before. I think of characters in everyday situations all the time. It helps me to get to know them better if that makes any sense. And, I have picked up qualities of my characters and vice versa.

 

The first time I used a rpg forum I started roleplaying with another girl. We had a little group inside of a much bigger site (it was pretty popular) and I now have her as a facebook friend

 

I meet loads of people as part of my job(s), and people watching is one of my favourite pastimes while I am enjoying a nice coffee or tea somewhere in town. What I experience and see there inspires my characters' little quirks, their beliefs, life choices etc. ... so there's almost always a little something of a person I know in my characters or the NPCs they encounter during play. I like to think that it makes them a little more tangible (but that might just be me).

On the "thinking about what your character might do" part, I wholeheartedly agree with HeartOfSutton - I do it all the time (after a stressful day at work, during my morning routine, out and about...) it's such an interesting exercise in character development, and makes writing your character a lot easier!

 

Ever met someone in real life who reminds you of a character you like, and you immediately like them?
Nope. But then, I tend to favour extreme characters. I don't mean assholes; I mean those larger-than-life near-caricatures that can really only exist in media. Real people are just a lot more temperate as a whole.

Ever find yourself thinking about how your character would respond to your every day life and situations and play it out in your mind?
It's a habit I'm actually trying to develop. I figure it's good for developing a deeper understanding of a character, as well as good fodder for plot ideas.

Have you ever noticed that you've picked up qualities of a character that you've been roleplaying as?
Yes, but only intentionally. I sometimes play characters with qualities I strive for, so I've told myself to be more like them once or twice.

Have you ever developed feelings (friendship or otherwise) for your roleplay partners through the act of roleplaying?
Yup, though I wouldn't call it transference so much as an appreciation for how well we mesh in terms of writing style, goals, characterisation, etc. It's a little bit disconcerting when you then go on to talk to the person and you just don't get along with them that well OOC, but as long as you can keep that stuff separate, it's actually a great thing to find.

 

My closest online friend got so close through an inforum RP. I have his facebook, skype, MSN. We constantly play vidya games together and are both artists, though I'm just a hobbyist while he plans to major in design.