09-08-2016, 07:51 PM
As someone who recently had the Year from hell, losing my mother, losing two pets (Luna and Tigger are fine I promise.) Getting informed that my favorite teacher in college died of cancer, finding out another friend has Cancer. Crap can pile up quick just in real life. The thing about Tragedy in Characters is that while it does happen, you don't want every little thing that goes wrong in their lives to define their character or they're going to become an angst bucket real quick.
Loss is a part of life, I don't carry the deaths of my pets constantly and have them define me as a person. I am working on dealing with my mother's death but that too is a part of life, and while I carry it now, I won't always. I carry it now because it's still fresh for me.
My issue with excessive tragedy in characters stems from a lot of it being seen as "necessary" to define your character. Realistically you suffer loss and usually move on. If the loss was traumatic enough that your character carries it for the rest of their lives, Don't pile on other tragedies that they also have to carry.
Elaborate back-stories actually make me cringe because they're slogging to read, usually full of over-used tropes, and need heavy re-writes. I know this seems like a lot of work for a simple RP forum but I've always been a fan of realistic characters to play with. At the end of the day, Sphinx has it right. It doesn't matter what your backstory is, no-one you meet here is going to care in IC. I personally just like to see that you've thought about what your character is like, what motivates them etc. It may have a bearing on your story here it might not.
Something to keep in mind is that if you tell your characters's "story" in their background, well, where can they go from here? What's left for them to do if they're already done? View RP as a way to tell your character's story HERE. So what you want in your profile is a bare-bones blueprint of the person they are and who they are currently. Your profile is the prologue. Your story starts in boot camp. :p
Loss is a part of life, I don't carry the deaths of my pets constantly and have them define me as a person. I am working on dealing with my mother's death but that too is a part of life, and while I carry it now, I won't always. I carry it now because it's still fresh for me.
My issue with excessive tragedy in characters stems from a lot of it being seen as "necessary" to define your character. Realistically you suffer loss and usually move on. If the loss was traumatic enough that your character carries it for the rest of their lives, Don't pile on other tragedies that they also have to carry.
Elaborate back-stories actually make me cringe because they're slogging to read, usually full of over-used tropes, and need heavy re-writes. I know this seems like a lot of work for a simple RP forum but I've always been a fan of realistic characters to play with. At the end of the day, Sphinx has it right. It doesn't matter what your backstory is, no-one you meet here is going to care in IC. I personally just like to see that you've thought about what your character is like, what motivates them etc. It may have a bearing on your story here it might not.
Something to keep in mind is that if you tell your characters's "story" in their background, well, where can they go from here? What's left for them to do if they're already done? View RP as a way to tell your character's story HERE. So what you want in your profile is a bare-bones blueprint of the person they are and who they are currently. Your profile is the prologue. Your story starts in boot camp. :p