DE: Hello Me, It's Me again

[bjornwilde]

 So how do you know you have a new head voice? What is that Je ne sais quoi that tells you the voice is strong and long lasting? Is it a means of testing the voice? Is it a playlist that springs fully formed from your psyche? Is it proper sacrifices and planetary alignment?

ETA: Now with proper French!

Comments

[ceitfianna]

Its changed for each character for me since what let's me know isn't really consistent. I've even resisted some headvoices for fear of doing them wrong.

William and Jane were two that once I saw their canons, I knew I could write them but I wasn't sure. With Jane, she's Jane Austen and I didn't want to get her wrong. William was just one of those voices that I knew I could play but just needed the moment to try him. Tumnus was another one that I fretted about getting him right but once I knew he was free, I had to app him.

Charles, I knew I could play once I started writing fic for him, but I worried with him as well since he's Charles Xavier. Then once I started playing him, he didn't leave. Also I needed to wait for the DW changeover so he would actually be free.

For my book characters, once I found a face for them then I knew I would be fine with them. That was also true of Demeter, once I found her face then the character was there. I tested them in sandboxes but for me, if their icons look right and I feel like by writing I have their voice, then they stay. What's interesting for me is that the PB has to have the right feel, they might not match exactly the book description but if they capture how I imagine the character then it works. Sameth's PB doesn't have exactly the right hair and Jude Law is probably a little too attractive for Moist but the looks in their icons matched what goes on in my head.

Its rare for me to test a voice and not have them stay around. The only time that's happened was when I tried to make a werewolf tabletop character work, but she just didn't hold. I think it had been too long since I played her and her voice was never as strong as I thought it was.

Some voices though are odd like the Pirate King, who was truly a crack character prompted pretty much by chat. He's still around in my head, but I haven't played him a lot since he requires a lot of energy and I can't sustain him long.

A kind of corollary of this is that I can't imagine letting go of any of them, because even when they're not that loud like the Pirate King, he's in my head. I know that when I'm not as exhausted by my job then I can bring him out again, but I always consider him my guest star headvoice.

[bjornwilde]

Finding the perfect face for the pup is definitely a clue with me. It's like finding the last puzzle piece.

[kd7sov]

I don't know?

If they start talking to me in words, as Fluttershy did, that's an excellent sign. Words per se are rare in my mindscape, and even for my strongest headvoices I usually have to translate a tag out of a tangle of emotion and connotation, so if they're producing their own words I know they're strong.

Often it starts with... resonance, I suppose you might say. The feeling that I understand a character. (Whether I actually do understand them or not may be a separate question...) This is far from a certain test, but if I don't have that resonance it's much harder. As for the in-between... as I said, I don't know.

[bjornwilde]

Resonance is definitely a good word. In the past I've been pup greedy with characters I liked but the reality check of resonance keeps me in check...mostly.

[bjornwilde]

As Kate said above, it changes with each pup but there are a few signs I've come to notice that distinguish a cool character and a head voice for me:
1-The perfect journal name. If it pops into my head, then there's a good chance of a strong voice.
2-Lately it's been if I feel the urge to write fic or background.
3-Do I "hear" the voice? By this I mean do I have a clear voice in my head of what the pup sounds like. If I'm not clear on how the pup speaks, then that's a reason to pause.

In the past I've also considered whether folks would tag the pup, as playability is something to factor in. Lately though, especially since playing Andrea, I've decided it's my responsibility to tag folks with the pup not the other way around.

Also, what sort of moods would the pup put me in. I've thought of playing Elric of Melniboné before but passed as his canon and his psyche would be too taxing and depressing. I still wonder if Milliways isn't somehow tied to Tanelorn. = ]

[notinthebook]

I usually know I have a new headvoice because someone tells me I do.

(I am looking at YOU, Amanda and Gabby.)

Many of my strongest headvoices have been total surprises. I never meant to app Emma, or Danny: going into those shows, I expected to write David Nolan/Prince Charming and Steve McGarrett, respectively, only to get slammed over the head with two snarky blond cops.

Caspian, my very first character, appeared because I had been haunting the game for a few months, and desperately wanted to join, so picked him because A. Thursday Next was already taken and B. he was my favorite character, and seemed to be easy enough to write, considering his entire character arc was available and he and I both love sailing.

Once I go looking for icons, it's all over.

[bjornwilde]

Looking for icons is usually the first sign that it's over. =D

[thebesteverseen]

Hey, hey, hey. (You can insert Danny's hands right here, missy.)

I did not make you play Danny Williams. Or Emma Swan. Totally not my fault. Totally not. Even if, okay, maybe, maybe, that one, because there was totes sweet like a bargain bin agreement for great plotting that involved that one or um those four, but I totally have not seduced you into making a Nathan journal yet.


I have been innocent. I totally ffffffffeeeeeeeeelllllll slandered.

[ladyoflorien]

WHAT.

I HAVE DONE NOTHING.


>_>

(But come on, don't act like you don't love it. YOU KNOW YOU DO. :D)

[saphyria]

When I read or watch a canon, the character has to be interesting enough that they become the one I'm most curious about, and then has to essentially show up in my head and say, "Oh you KNOW this isn't the whole story, right?"

That's what happened with Mogget when I was finishing Abhorsen. He gets ONE chance to speak as Yrael, to his brother, and is fecking interrupted. And then the battle is over and the wonderful source of snark disappears. What the hell. There is such a story behind him and his siblings, and it's barely alluded to by the author. It was very easy to pick up that cat and bring him to the bar, as a way to find out more about him. And he's been snarking and conniving and mooching (and growing as a character and as a person, but don't tell him that) ever since.

Sunshine's canon very explicitly states that what is in the book isn't the whole story, but just the beginning. It leaves all sorts of loose ends and unanswered questions. So essentially Sunshine showed up in my head, asking, "What are you planning to do about it?"

Zelgadiss is a reticent character, but throughout canon it's clear that there's more going on beneath the surface. He has a quest, and while the Word of God (warning: TV Tropes) is that he gets his human body back eventually, it never happens in canon. So he asked me to fix it. :)

[bjornwilde]

Oh the urge to explore the character beyond canon is an excellent point!

[ceitfianna]

Oh yes, wanting to know their story is key for me as well. I had the same kind of thing happen with Sameth, I felt he was shortchanged by the story.

Or wanting to fill out the story when you know parts are missing even if the character is the main character. With Charles, I watched the movie and wanted more, because every montage or glossing over of time said, there's more of a story here and I wanted to know it.

[herr_bookman]

*poster child*

[genarti]

1) I know what I want to do with them in-bar. Whether it's "expand upon canon with other friendships" or "deal with life post-canon" or just "bounce around as a crack character," I have to have a purpose for sending them to Milliways. A character I really just want to do canon OOMs with isn't a good fit.

2) I have a solid sense of their voice. Practice helps this, of course, but either it comes naturally to me or it doesn't, and if it doesn't forcing it will just make me feel stressed and insecure about it.

3) I can toss the character into various scenarios in my head -- meeting this other character, meeting that one, meeting a wizard, meeting someone from the future, meeting a talkative bratty child, being asked about their backstory, having an EP without ongoing plot -- and see easily how it might unfold. If I can only easily play the character in a limited set of circumstances, it's not going to work out.

[bjornwilde]

I think that first one is important and I've gotten in trouble when not considering it. =]

[cameoflage]

That third one has been known to trip me up. Not all of my OCs are particularly well-suited to getting chucked into sandbox!Milliways and left to navigate through a conversation with chaotic gods and bona fide superheroes. They tend not to come back, after I've spent a thread struggling to extract responses.

[thebesteverseen]

It's all sort of a long story, I think. But it comes down to feeling a sort je ne sais quoi with the character. Something that undeniably makes me attached to their story, if not them far more than the rest of the world around them. That gives them a little more glow. If you walk through the kinds of characters I write, this usually comes down to a mess of certain undeniable traits -- selflessness, rebelliousness, idealism that in the face of great darkness, undeniable love and vision, and an unshakable moral fortitude at the center that almost no circumstance can break.

You'll, also, find frequently mixed into those -- highly capable of violence/destruction, amazing liar, quick tempered, and drives/rides fast. I, also, really like picking character whom I think challenge me as a person. To understand. To walk through how they think, and why they would make the choices they make, why they have those specific loyalties or faultlines. I like epic good things in a characters past, habits, reactions as much as I love glaring bad ones.



I, honestly, as hilariously as it falls out picked Marian very economically. Jean was already taken six years ago, and someone cockblocked the door on Tess (which I don't hold against anyone, word choice aside, but it was hard, then, and took near five months to pick someone else). Because I was deeply in love with her in a show, hadn't quite moved from love of watching to love of fic writing yet, and she fit a lot of my then wanting boxes.

From sparky, takes no crap lady, with a bow, who could, also, be very regal, polite, kind, and had a spiky-covered heart of gold.

Edward and Jo both moved in without a vote from me. They just got up and started walking around, talking to me about their lives outside their canon, and when I fall into a characters world and not the subject world, I'm done for.

With Edward, I wanted to breathe in the marrow of the bones of his eighty years before his book. With Jo, I was suddenly voracious to dig deep into a world where hunters had been in your life since birth and this life was not only a choice instead of a tragedy, but the greatest, most honorable choice you could ever make.

Star just sort of existed at me from a place of needing a character who was all sunshine and rainbows all the time, without being a ditz, and it was lovely that it fit into a spirituality I knew a lot about, and was willing to do the research for what had been written for the Tarot in game already. Long, amazing arcs of growth and card/plan walking.

Mary-Margaret is totally Laura's fault (because this is my favorite sentence, lately). But it's true. I had two other characters I would have picked before her, but there was a crazy, shady, under the table deal of much giggling, and in the end? I ended up with a mousy school teacher with the amazingly golden heart, and an Enchanted Fairytale version of Marian (except with a crazy ton more forgiveness, love, acceptance *cough*ahappyending*cough*.

Who promptly moved in and took over everything, and I absolutely adore her. Both Mary Margaret and Snow White.

And, Jean. Well. Jean has owned me since I was six. I was worshipping at her altar before there were churches.

Steve. Well, Steve, just steamrollered me. The way he does everyone else. The world expected I'd glom to Kono, so I expected I'd glom to Kono, and I could write Kono so easily. She's a mash of Jo/Marian/Star & with a Hawaiian surfer twist I could pull off blind at this point. Steve just. I flail my hands. The man just took over, like I an area of operation to be strategically secured.

Every single thing about him, great and horrid, was another nail in the coffin before I was eying this epically tall, compartmented, man and making tiny shy squeaks on twitter about being in love with this character and not wanting to get under Laura's feet, or even admit it. (Because I might blame the show on her, but Steve was nothing something she shoved onto me, really.)

[haole_cop]

I definitely did not leap all over you and go YES YES DO THAT at the prospect of trying Steve.



Nope.



There was no pushing involved.

[herr_bookman]

I only have the one, but: Lohengrin!mun pushed me. Autor was pretty "meh" to me until she told me to take a look at apping him into Milliways. I figured the bar seemed to be lacking a manipulative little twerp, so why not?

And now? Well. I did not expect to obsess this much over a kid with less than an hour of screen time out of a two season series.

[nocarename]

They mug me.

Mostly of my free time, but they mug me.

Artemis, for instance, was not who I went looking for. I'd hoped that one of the YJ boys would click for me. And nope, snarky archer!

Ako sets a distressing number of my podcast subscriptions and Robo takes most of the rest.

[ladyoflorien]

Generally, I know when I can't stop thinking about them. I tend to fight headvoices, refusing down to the very last moment to create a journal or look for icons. The strongest voices will not back down. They make my heart hurt in all the right ways, and say to me "This is my story. I need you to tell it." Clearly my headvoices are a dramatic bunch.

Alternatively, I will occasionally pick up a voice because a) I feel a strong kinship and likeness to the character, and b) they look like a lot of fun to play. Every now and again I'll watch or read something and shout about how x character is my long lost twin, and then I just have to try them out. And heaven forbid anyone bat their eyes and enable me, because once I start thinking about things that would be fun to play out I'm usually sunk. You guys suck. :(

♥!

[bjornwilde]

And heaven forbid anyone bat their eyes and enable me,

Cause you have never done that. (See icon) = D

[damncompass]

Generally, when I have a new headvoice, it's fairly clear. They start loudly fussing at me, and I start knowing way more things about their personal life than I really ought to.

Joshua snuck up on me. All of a sudden he was just chatting to me about large colliders, his little sister, and what he wanted to do with his life.

... not to mention his canon snuck up on me. (Thanks, minkhollow for that. :/)

[inlovewithwords]

1) I start hearing their responses to conversations I am having IRL and/or running commentary on their canons in their voice rather than mine.
2) I start obsessing over details of the world ridiculously and talk my poor friends' ears off.
3) I start looking for/imagining/actually thinking of The Best Journal Name (may be exchanged with 4, 5, or 6).
3a) I make the journal.
4) I start looking for icons (may be exchanged with 3, 5, or 6)
4a) I start saving the icons in carefully organized folders on my computer.
5) I upload the icons to the journal.
6) I know exactly what I'd do with them in a game (may be exchanged with 3, 4, or 5).
7) I start setting up profile/HMD/whatever Housekeeping stuff in their journals.

The Big Tell: 8) God forbid I start writing the app, especially for elsegames which require Long, In-Depth Essays. I do that, I'm screwed.

Tavi and Lois especially have proved to be Special Cases in that they moved in so swiftly and so loudly and have stood the test of time so well. Almost four years I've had Tavi in my head; Lois, two and a half. They've never let up in how loud they are, even when my RP ability has dropped into negative values. And for them more than others I tend to be willing to attempt to resurrect my RP drive.

Man, I need to make some 'these are my pups' icons...

[kd7sov]

Curiously, your 4a isn't even part of my process. I do that with everyone.

No, seriously, I've got at least ten icons from Final Fantasy games that I've never played. I've got seven different icons for Azula, whom I wouldn't play even if I had her voice. I've got (if I've sorted everything correctly) forty-three Luna Lovegood icons, and she hasn't showed up no matter how much I invite her.

[yakalskovich]

Usually, I'm hooked when I start listing reasons why I shouldn't/wouldn't play them, and there's nobody for the icons anyway, who should I use, [[insert obvious choice here]] or what? Nah, totally not happening...

And the charrie is lurking in the back of my mind, smirking to themselves.

[bjornwilde]

Oh yeah I hear this. Arguing with the pup about why you can't adopt them is another sign. = ]

[cameoflage]

I'm still something of a newcomer to inviting fandom characters to move into my head, so my process might be a bit weird.

The most reliable indicator for me is that I find myself spending a significant amount of mental CPU cycles working out what was happening inside their head during their canon (for fandom characters) or their previous scenes (for OCs) and how their personality's put together. When I start psychoanalyzing a pup, I guess.

Having said that, I basically extracted an Aradia headvoice from the Homestuck character analysis I'd already seen and done. I essentially did the process in reverse for her because I'd gotten it into my head that I wanted to play Aradia and could do a decent job of it. Thurlow, on the other hand, just sort of grew all over my brain like a fungus. (How fitting for a character who lives underground.)

Having a song or two leap from my iTunes library and glom onto the character is also a decent indicator. At one point, having a theme song I really liked was what made the difference between playing a character and abandoning them before their debut.

These aren't quite the same as the signs that I want to commit to a character; wanting to commit doesn't necessarily stop them from slipping through my fingers. But if I go to the trouble of making them a journal and writing a sandbox EP or two, then I at least want to keep them.

[muckrakeress]

I picked up Clem because I really, really wanted to fix her ending. I always sympathized with her, even though in canon she tends to make terrible choices (something I need to be conscious of her doing more oft).

I love Dixie's pragmatism - and I wanted to play a woman who's independent and self-propelled. Plus I love Briscocanon.

I blame Becky for Jules. She picked up Shawn and we watched the show an, well, there was her voice.

Pinkie ended up becoming one of my pups simply because I relate to her the most. Yep. Of the four of them it's her.

At the moment, Merida, Mable Pines and Bender are all vying for headspace.