Daily Entertainment.

[muji]

The first of many 08 posts for me, I'm sure.

Question: What do you think is the hardest archetype to play in the bar, from the following list: deity, human over age 55, teenager, children under 12, or mortal non-human?

(Or a write-in choice of something I missed.)

Comments

[innerbrat]

*eyes list* I kind of play all of those right now. Counting Death as a deity, and Cera as both a mortal non-human and a child (and Karo as both mortal non-human and teenager)

I don't find any of those particularly hard as archetypes: it depends on the character, not their situation.

[muji]

I guess I ask the question from a different perspective, in that Sallie (my human over age 55) and Ned (my child under 12) both require different setups and development patterns than Mal, for example.

Or that could just be Mal being Mal. *shrug*

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

*headtilt*

*ponder*

Deity. Definitely. I have played or do play everything on the list and by far, the deity takes the cake for being utterly brain-consuming and exhausting to write for every single time.

[muji]

I don't think I could ever do a god. *applauds you*

[ostro_goth]

A public domain archetype or anthropomorphic personification. Among all my characters that I am playing or have played, Tower is the one that's massively different: he doesn't have his own agenda (there is nothing happening with him as a person) and he very much has his own mind. I find myself spontaneously typing things I never meant to, and if I have him do a tarot reading, I can't really play anyone else. His readings work uncannily well. It is almost scary to have such an entity making himself comfortable in my brain for one evening, so I try not to do it that often.

As a rule, I do believe in plot, in controlling my characters and in steering them at least as you'd steer a sailing craft - not like a car, of course.

[muji]

Ah! Public Domain's a good one. Everyone already has such a strong vision -- it'd be like apping Santa Claus.

[camwyn]

Children under 12. The urge to write them as inconveniently small adults is very, very strong, and kids think and act differently from grownups... and falling back to the media for portrayals of kid characters is no help, because it seems sometimes as if ninety percent of media portrayals of children are pathetically, pathologically Deliberately Adorable rather than anything at all like real children.

[innerbrat]

Luckily with a game like this, the majority of child characters are media portrayals of children.

[djcati.livejournal.com]

You've made me realise that I've never played a non-human character. The temptation to app a droid is now far too strong.

[muji]

*beeps at you helpfully*

[calluna]

Deity, definitely.

That's why I dropped Arianrhod. XD;

[muji]

I can't even think of a deity that I would do.

[silveraspen]

Deity was the hardest for me, by far. Child under twelve was the next most difficult.

[muji]

Any other types I missed?

[sdelmonte]

I could never play a teenager. As hard as some of the others (though obviously not adult over 55, given how many of my pups are over 50) would be for me, teenagers have always seemed like another species of life to me, even when I was one.

[muji]

OMG word. Teenagers are weird. That's why Ned's gonna go from 10 to 29.

[dingdongdoodily.livejournal.com]

I'm going to say Diety, which is why I don't play any. Rock Gods don't count because they're a whole other level of crazy, and I enjoy playing them.

Buuut, as far as my own collected ensemble is concerned...

Zim. Zim is the hardest. He's too cracky. I have trouble maintaining the voice without trying to be serious with him. He's both childish and non-human, and his entire style is one of those Have To Have It things that I rarely do have. When I'm on, though? I'm on.

[muji]

Ain't that a great feeling when you nail it?

[bethan-b-bad.livejournal.com]

Mortal, completely mundane humans, for me. I've actually found children under twelve (well, young!Sam, and Molly who is almost thirteen) quite easy; I think you just have to get into the mindset, which is why I try not to play teenySam and grownSam at the same time.

And crackpups! Edna is so hard.

[dingdongdoodily.livejournal.com]

Word on crackpups.
But Edna is love, dahling.

[muji]

I think I fundamentally prefer something in my characters that you can't really find with deities -- insecurity. I've never read and been enraptured enough of a deity to be considering apping them.

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

Children and teenagers, definitely. I need a lot of personal history to work with--a lot of personal issues, too. And children and teenagers just don't have that much to work with. They're still forming themselves. I guess I might have an easier time with teenagers, but children? No. Definitely not.

Oddly enough, writing an adult over the age of 55 has been easy for me. Now, I'm not sure if I do him well, but. I'm not struggling. I guess because, like, all my pups are significantly older than me.

[muji]

Sallie's gotten so easy for me that sometimes I worry if she's a self-insert. :O But I get what you're saying, definitely.

[leeshajoy.livejournal.com]

Personally, the archetype I find trickiest is "villain." I play Audrey II, who is a pretty non-complex brand of bad guy, and I have to constantly rein him in from eating anyone who tags him. I can't even contemplate playing a more sophisticated 'evil' character.

[muji]

And you get mucho points for that, definitely.

And now I want a Audrey-SARAH.

(Sidenote: How many people didn't post for the icon exchange?)

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede isn't really a deity, but he's pretty close, and he's definitely the hardest of my characters to play. The problem is not so much in thinking up what he would do or writing for him; it's just hard for him to relate to a lot of people. The majority of the time, it seems like he ends up blinking at all of the mortals or they end up blinking at him.

[muji]

What keeps you playing him?

[misslucyjane]

I've played a diety, a mortal non-human, and a child, and I think out of the three of them the child was the hardest. As been's said, it's hard to play a child realistically unless you actually know some well, and even then the urge to make them overly precocious is pretty strong. It's hard to remember that children just think differently than adults do. (I've also played a divine child, Jack Green's daughter Georgia, and playing the mix of PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER and itty bitty self-control is hard.)

[lissla-lissar.livejournal.com]

Nyarlathotep.

...Do I need to explain further, or does that do it?

[muji]

No, I think you're good.

[thechaosbringer]

Deity: Not really hard. Unicron is the only one I have who fits into that role, and mostly it's just writing the sorts of things you'd expect him to do.

Adults: Not very hard. I think like an adult [at 32 I'd better think like an adult!], so writing an adult character comes easy to me. [Rabastan is not 55+; he's 40, but definitely an adult, despite his tendency to act juvenile.]

Non-humans: I find them easiest. To me, animal characters are easy to write, since getting into their minds comes naturally. Of course, one of my bigger fandoms is the Cheysuli fandom, so for me my animal characters invariably take on personalities akin to the lir animals.

The tarot pups fall into the non-human category, but they're immortal. Same rules apply to them though. I just think of someone who'd pen an advice column for your local paper [Tarot Cards: Immortal Agony Aunts with certain specialisations?]

Robots in general are either easy or tricky. Easy because I like non-humans. Tricky because, being non-humans means that they've got their own world and culture to deal with. Since Rad's young [For a robot. I've said he's about 5-6 Vorns old, and a Vorn is approximately 83 years, making him approximately 500 years old], he's picked up human behaviours so he's more a humanised Cybertronian, because his age meant adopting new ways is easier than those who are many, many, many Vorns older than he.

Hardest: Young people, especially children. The urge to write them as adults is pretty damn strong. Teenagers are a little less hard, but the only times I've written teenagers was when I was playing characters whose adult personalities were to varying degrees already known, so I simply modified their personas to fit this. But I've never written a teenager whose adult life was a humongous unknown variable.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

I envy you, because I find writing animals hard. Every time I post with Lockjaw, I spend twenty minutes writing a comment!

[princeinexile]

Lets see:

Adults: Easy Peasy.

Teenagers: Not a problem; I think Zuko is a reasonable facscimile of a teenager -- he does stupid things, for stupid reasons, thinks he's smarter then he is, and generally flails all over and screws up more. The Avatar teens and kids are pretty well writtena and are not tiny adults.

Children: I'd never do it. It'd drive me bad shit. That's why I don't have any like this.

Diety: Ehhh. Not hard at all, IMHO.

I don't have a mortal non-human anymore, but crownedwithfire was really easy to play. But he has awesome backup canon... But I suppose his background makes the 'mortal' part sticky. Can he die? He's come back twice. Maybe he doesn't count.

[muji]

Maybe you're just awesome. EVER THINK O' THAT?

[kali921.livejournal.com]

I don't play a deity, but I'd say deity, followed by human over 55, followed by giant teleporting dog - I think animals can be extraordinarily challenging, too.

I think it's difficult to write a god or goddess really well, particularly deities that have an ineffable, otherwordly quality, and the very thought of so doing intimidates the hell out of me.

I'd say that out of my characters, Lockjaw is the hardest. He doesn't vocalize directly (at least, he won't to anyone in Bar; that honor is reserved only for Very Special People, and like Tolkien's Huan, probably only happens once or thrice in his lifetime).

[sdelmonte]

I'm curious...did you have any temptation to play Lockjaw as a sentient Inhuman and not an "Incanine" (and ignore the mild retcon)?

[stuck-mynock.livejournal.com]

Children under twelve, definitely. Or animals.

Humans over 55, teenagers and deities are all fairly easy for me, and mortal non-humans are, too, so long as they aren't animals - Primarily difficult for me due to the lack of actual speech. Makes things finicky. But young children - It's very tempting to make them miniature adults, because I can't get my head around their thought processes or, in particularly young children, speech patterns.

[mistressmaryquitecontrary]

I have a hard time with characters who are too super-special. I get way too nervous about power dynamics - it's a lot easier for me with normal (or at least normalish) humans who are low on the exceptional abilities totem pole.

I can't even imagine how hard it would be to play someone who was powerful and villainous.

[muji]

I think that's why I like my humans? Ned's my first adventure into 'powers'.

[canadabear.livejournal.com]

I have to chime in with IB - I think it's the specific character as opposed to what generic category they fall into. I've played a deity, if we classify Lucifer in there, and she was very easy for me to play. Same with the Pendragon twins, whom I played both at two years old for about a month. Again, they were ridiculously easy to play and in fact, gave me opportunity to play off people I hadn't before. Teenagers I've played with little difficulty (o hai Clark) as well as non-human mortal with Sikozu. The only category mentioned I haven't played in is the over 55, so I can't speak to that.

Personally, I think non-humanoid characters would be very difficult to play and I'm always horribly impressed when I see those of you who have them doing such a good job.

[muji]

Why would non-humans be hard? *prods*

[adiva_calandia]

*eyes list* Check, not anymore, check, barely check, nope.

I think kids under twelve are hardest of that list, really. I'm hard-pressed to get the right age, and not play too young or too old. That's my only big difficulty playing teenagers, too -- getting the age progression right.

Personally, though, hardest is 30-something. It's like . . . well, I'm still 10+ years from that point, so I don't have anything personal to draw on. And while I find it fairly easy to extrapolate older characters, probably because I hang out with my parents and parents' friends a lot, it's really hard for me to extrapolate that middle range.

Of course, part of that may also be that my two 30-somethings both have fairly limited canons, so I don't really have a characterization to work off of except the stuff I make up.

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

*headtilt* Where does Puck fit in, d'you think? Deity? Because it's quite possible that that would give his ego a swelling it does nooooot need ... also, I tend to think of him as mentally belonging to the "children under 12" crowd. :D?

Though I don't think I've ever played a kid ... it's never appealed. But I wonder if I could do it. Hm.