#transference through writing

[0rb0t]

I've never really understood how the internet has used "kin" before, and I'm also still trying to understand DID systems (I know they're not the same thing, promise that's not what I'm saying.) I've had a bumpy time trying to understand and I apologize that I may slip up when talking to systems.

But I wanted to talk about something I've noticed about myself that maybe is somewhat related? Maybe not, but it's made enough of an impact on my life that I feel like it's quasi-related.

I'm a roleplayer, I love to perform a character to bring them to life. I strictly know them to be a work of fiction in order to convey self expression or just to tell a story. However, I also almost feel like there's an element of transference going on--

What I mean by that is, writing my characters has led me to actually realize various truths about myself, come to terms with things that have happened to me, and even seek out professional diagnoses on things that I didn't have an understanding of until I started writing that character.

However, transference can go the other direction, too. From what I've read about it, as well as how it's used in other forms of media, literature, etc., is that the thing you're transferring onto may sometimes be able to transfer back onto you.

I'm not saying that my characters have independent thoughts separate from me when I'm not writing them, that would be impossible (and because I value autonomy of myself, too frightening to consider not being in control of my own characters.)

However, something that I try very hard to do is make my characters feel like real people. They have their own hobbies, they have their own likes and dislikes, they have their own opinions about things that often either contradict mine (VERY OFTEN), or are in wild contrast to other characters of mine, OR... nuanced differences. That's hard to keep track of usually, but when I'm in the headspace to write that character, it's as easy as breathing.

And that's also where the transference problem occurs-- a struggle I'm still trying to work on (and also why I have so many characters to switch to) is that if my character is upset... those feelings of upset end up sinking into me, even if I'm in a relatively good mood. Take Tough Love for example-- he's a character of mine who has a defined sense of self that he's quite confident in-- BUT he's also very egotistical and tends to not view others' experiences or selves as anywhere comparable to his own or of value. This causes him to be very stuffy and superior at times, and when that attitude bleeds back into me, it's BAD. I can sometimes become more callous or dismissive. This is unlike how I tend to be. I have to be careful with a character like Tough because of that kind of thing.

More under the cut as well as images.

Currently, in a Second Life RP called Spira, I'm writing 5 different characters.

Orville Botte

Sir Moss

Tough Love

Repo Wolf

Rhedd End

These are all characters that I've written variations of either since 2016, 2019 or 2020-- and they are all VERY DIFFERENT from each other. Tough Love doesn't usually look like that, he usually looks like a skeleton or a blue and purple cobra.

But they are also all with their OWN likes and dislikes, their own moral compasses, their own F-LISTS, etc.

I don't like to insert myself into the narrative, I generally don't like to say I have sonas or anything because I am wholly uninterested in being involved in the narrative, I just want to be the one bringing characters to live, but all of them are capable of transferring their emotional states onto me if I'm not careful. And all of these characters have a theme of abandonment trauma-- though they have different ways of responding to or showing that trauma.

BUT despite that, I still maintain that when I roleplay them, IC=/=OOC. Because it doesn't!!! If I'm experiencing emotional transference, it's up to me to distance myself and either swap characters or go do something else for a bit. It can just get a little hard to tell that's what's happening. I'm getting better at it though.

And I have so many more characters than this, but mostly focusing on the ones I'm writing on Spira because I've basically planned out their differences. If I want something more sensitive and submissive, I'll write Orville. If I want funny but assertive, I'll write Sir Moss. If I want funny but unsympathetic, I'll write Tough Love. If I want a completely unhinged time, I'll write Repo Wolf, and if I want a boisterous joyful nutbar, I'll write Rhedd.

Writing Rhedd usually puts me in a place of genuine adoration for everything, because he's just so 8D all the time.

I've even considered like... making a sideblog to this one where people can talk to these characters, maybe not their Spira versions but just their default ones... I have roleplay blogs for all of them but they're all separate and I don't want to keep logging into all of them.

Their NOT Spira versions are:

Orbot (Sonic Boom primarily), Sir Moss, Tough Love, Repo Rick and Rhedd Radio.

(orbot, Sir Moss)

(Snake!Tough/Skeleton!Tough)

(Repo Rick, Rhedd Radio)

I'll try to have a blurb to each of them, but I've been writing all of them for years so... there's probably a lot to cover. There are ASPECTS to their canon selves but generally they're just... changed. To be loved is to be changed.

The point of this post got away from me LOL

#thoughts #writing thoughts #transference #transference through writing

[mishy-mashy]

Bruce is actually really attractive, and I have enough reasoning to make a list

He's:

Tall (. Tall enough to hit his head on the vault doorframe)

Long-legged

Has a straight nose bridge

Has high cheekbones (more noticeable in 2nd pic below)

Has a strong jawline

Sharp eyes, but they aren't small (plus eyebags if you're into that)

Overall, he has strong, attractive facial features

Has broad, refined shoulders. You can tell he works out (or he did, when he was alive)

Even has a thick, muscly neck

He has MUSCLE. Is SCULPTED. NOICE. VERY NOICE. (nice arms. Nice shoulders. Nice neck. Nice legs. Nice butt-)

(There are actually panels where you can see some of his muscles. Other than those already shown here, he's got bricky thighs-

-and in the panels where we first get his name dropped, he's got those shoulder blades too-)

The one time we see him smile, and he actually has a scary one

Has small, kinda sharp pupils, and his eyes remind me of a cat. We only ever saw him tense or defensive, so his resting/listening face is really cute

Other than the physical appearance stuff, he also:

Takes shit without batting an eye (patience, knowing it's just how Kudo is, etc)

Kudo being all "Cut the crap Bruce and give it to me straight", after Bruce tests his blood and is rightfully Concerned because they just faced AFO

Put up with Kudo's experimenting and testing over Yoichi's transferable Factor

Did ya'll see the look on Kudo's face when he realized he had Yoichi's Factor/will? Kudo was going to start in nonsense and Bruce just dealt with that.

Also something I noticed when looking back at the images here; Bruce has bandages on his arms in the void. But not when he faced AFO in the sewers.

Were he and Kudo cutting their arms open in their experimenting over Yoichi's theory? Is this why Kudo has two gauntlets instead of his one? Why we never see his bare arms in the void? That he always keeps his arms down so there's no slip?

Is smart enough to run blood tests, plus has enough common sense to pick Shinomori as his successor

He picked a guy who avoids society, has an Ability to detect danger so he can always stay away from AFO, is also a coward so he's never going to go throw himself into danger, even without knowing instinctively he stands no chance, etc.

Meanwhile, Kudo chose Bruce, who he played Hot Potato Yoichi with; but he did also trust Bruce, and put the only pure combative Ability in OFA through Bruce.

These two made their choices based on what they valued and saw the Factor needed.

Is logical, analytical, and calm.

He tried advising Midoriya on their Abilities in One For All, especially his own.

Midoriya then tried ignoring him about using Fa Jin for the first time, but found he was right, thinking: "Dammit!! I had [Lady Nagant] right where I wanted her, but... ugh! The Third was right. My parallel Quirk processes are all screwed up!" (ch. 314).

Plus, when Midoriya fixed his processing mistakes, Bruce was analyzing the way he reached his new conclusion. Pure facts, no bias, very calm, just saying it as it was.

We never see him panic. When he's caught by surprise in the sewers by AFO, Kudo, and Yoichi's little bubble event, he immediately reacts. He doesn't falter, he just knows he has to do something right now.

Was more willing to listen than Kudo to Yoichi's beckon, and probably was just following Kudo's rejection of Midoriya

While we don't see Kudo's face, we see Bruce's eyes when Yoichi calls on his heroes. Bruce was more open and receptive, or at least more impacted.

Bruce was also the one to start talking, while Kudo just kept quiet.

He actually communicates a lot

When Yoichi called them to support Midoriya, Bruce started talking to paint a picture of why they thought the way they did, so Yoichi understood where they were coming from.

(Though he seems to beat about the bush sometimes, since Kudo spoke up to be direct on how they couldn't just put their trust in some starry-eyed teenager. Plus, when Kudo tells him to just tell him what's wrong [double Factors])

When Midoriya first used Fa Jin against Nagant, Bruce came out just to tell him he knew what he was trying, but that Midoriya wasn't ready; and Midoriya found he was right. Midoriya just didn't want to listen to him then.

He asks Kudo for clarification after finding Kudo had two Factors in him after the sewer incident ("Just to be sure, All For One didn't touch you, right?") Kudo knew him well enough to go "stop beating around the bush and tell me", so Bruce was probably gonna start with questions, theories, and trying to understand everything in general, before saying "yeah you have two Factors. Don't know why".

Is strong-willed and loyal.

He followed Kudo, even to death, carrying on the cause he started until it ended with him.

Plus, when talking about how AFO needs a strong will to override OFA's own, we first see Bruce, Kudo, and Yoichi.

AFO couldn't steal OFA because the will was too strong for him, and that was back during Banjo's time. Since Shinomori never actually tried opposing AFO and just hid, we can assume the first Three (Yoichi, Kudo, Bruce) already had an accumulation of strong willpower that made OFA un-stealable. Those three are a strong enough foundation, and the main wills, that the other users just become bonuses.

Kudo, also saying that Midoriya needs allies with the same will and drive as him... hey Kudo, you're talking about yourself and your old allies, aren't you? That's why you look at Yoichi and Bruce when you say this.

Not only is Bruce attractive, but he's got good character. THE END.

#yes this is a bruce appreciation post #am i biased? yes. am i right that he has these features? also yes. #hes actually a very attractive person. hes got all the right features for it #plus hes smart (some medical knowledge) is really loyal strong-willed and patient #he puts up with kudo SO much #from being bossed around to taking home yoichis brother to whatever the heck kudo made him do to figure out OFA's transfer properties..... #i didnt think much of bruce originally #then i started doing resistance fic stuff and now hes a fave #hes a little blorbo #that i throw in terrible situations for my own entertainment #used his scary smile for comedy purposes #like when he made a kid cry once. or when a meta child was afraid of him so they bit him #has patience to deal with kudo and co. but also. has enough bite to snark them. is how i like writing him #oh? background character? well lemme just *picks him up* EXPAND ON THAT- #fic stuff: he tries making a good impression on a girl and kudo is ruining it immediately #he doesnt know what to do because the two always banter #kudo: fuck you #oc: fuck me yourself you coward #he sees through a rose-lens that kudo is trying to rip off his face #appeciation kinda turned analysis in general #bruce #kudo #yoichi shigaraki #bnha #mha #spoilers #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #NOT YOICHIS BROTHER. i meant Yoichi / AFO's brother in a prev tag up there but theres too much tags i dont wanna rewrite to fix that #(image limit and tag limit)

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

connection between "the poets are just kids who didn't make it" -> "I went to sleep a poet and I woke up a fraud" -> "I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead"

also a branch off there that ties Hand of God with TMOTM but that's actually a lyric comp I'm planning to make soon more than an actual note

#lftos essay #I'm just posting notes now. apparently. I'm trying to write out an outline rn skfnskngsk #EDIT the connection between hand of god and tmotm is the fraud/liar bit #hand of god is very eh whatever about it. hand to my heart gun to my head swear to God I'm through with this - I'm the worst liar I know #tmotm is CONCISE and DIRECT and SPECIFIC. I went to sleep a poet and I woke up a fraud #which. idk when tmotm was written exactly. patrick wanted it on the album proper instead of dark alley and champagne #but the song released in march 2006. I'm just saying that in a lot of ways hand of god feels like a draft almost #and MUCH of what it says both literally and thematically is transfered into tmotm #the contrast of the 2nd verse of hand of god vs the clarity and precision of ''went to sleep a poet and woke up a fraud'' ? #um.... hm. I won't conjecture #especially not on main. but....... I do have An Emotion about this ngl #ok that was just for my own notes ignore me. pencil in hand I'm just trying to make this work #moving on.

[ckret2]

"Hey you keep saying you're under the weather but you got out two chapters this week, how come?"

All of these chapters are complete except chapters 23, 25?, and ???, which are still in progress. I actually wrote chapters 14 and 15 back in mid June.

"How come you've got such a long buffer of chapters?" So that if I need to shuffle around some stuff to like 5 chapters earlier than I initially planned for, I can do so; and also, so that I've still got some stuff to post if, say, I get sick for a couple weeks.

And that's not even counting all the scene scraps I don't have a chapter for yet.

(now I'm just taunting y'all)

#about my writing #bill goldilocks cipher #(i just went through my notes app to transfer aaaaall my scene scraps to my folder for this project)

[s-ccaam-era-crepe]

wait question

Asking cuz only one of you plus my irls know and I kinda want to know what vibes I give off

#camera talks #and as most of y’all know I’m from New England so like #I will be deeply offended depending on the answers btw /j #anyways I thought of this bc of my accent and like. if it transfers through writing and stuff #okay I’m at work and I’ve rambled too long sorry #(oh and I have a terrible cough still this hurts like Hell #) #also I Probably won’t tell at the end of the poll but I want to Know so <3

[the-sky-queen]

Little snippet of my Metal AU for y'all. :D

#The font I used for Metal's writing isn't gonna transfer to Ao3 and it makes me kinda sad #oh well #also as i read through this i'm realizing i'm gonna have to edit quite a bit #the writing is so ooooollllldddd gahhhh #there are some really good bits but i'm gonna have to edit this #Sky Queen #Sonic the Hedgehog #Sonic AU #Metal AU #Sonic #Metal Sonic #Metal Sonic is Sonic Roboticized AU #writing

[quatregats]

Hornblower as a character is like catnip to me but C.S. Forester is so so annoying <3

#i am taking your little man and transferring him onto a wet sheet of paper then putting him in a better book #sorry i just read the two short stories at the back of hornblower during the crisis #and the first one is like i want patrick o'brian here patrick o'brian would understand the complexities of this situation better than you #like *screaming and crying* everything about the way this story is set up is so so bad the rebellion of '98 was Based actually #and the second one is the epitome of He Would Not Fucking Say That #anyways. the books are very easy to get through at least but got DAM someone needs to complicate this lad #i want the british empire to break him i want him to break and then give up or become a cog in the machine and be miserable about it #then again maybe i am projecting mats onto him too hard idk. write your own book or whatever #perce rambles #hornblower

[youngpettyqueen]

I wish we got more episodes that explored Margaret and the nurses and their relationships that were like. written well

#mash #margaret houlihan #I do like The Nurses but I hate the Margaret plot line in it where it turns out she's so upset because they dont talk to her #I think it would've actually been interesting to explore that through the nurses and Margaret discussing that #and Margaret being held accountable for how awful she's been to the nurses because she has been absolutely awful to them #multiple times #but the narrative instead acts like the nurses were at fault somehow and thats where it loses me #and its especially annoying because in other episodes Margaret takes more responsibility for how she feels isolated #and acknowledges that its her own doing #just. bad writing #the episodes that deal with Margaret and the nurses feel like they miss most of the time #and there's little to no consistency in those relationships #they dont particularly improve after this episode #Margaret being awful to the nurses continues to be a plot point in multiple episodes #and even then sometimes thats like. the intended plot point #but she isnt even being that awful #like in Images I think it is when she wants to transfer out the nurse who keeps breaking down #like sorry I think she was right for that #and the episode treats her like a villain #I could write an essay on Margaret's writing when it comes to her relationships with the nurses and where it fails #saw a gifset from The Nurses and didnt want to dump all this in the tags so here's this

[mantisgodsdomain]

Concept for your desire to do a specific bracket tournament that isn't weighted against OCs: EVERY character is represented by a Picrew or a stock image, and EVERY character has the name of their source work written without any indication if it's actually published (if the WIP does not yet have a title, a placeholder title is used without indicating that it is such). Voters won't know if the character is from something published that they simply haven't heard of yet

The problem with this is that it would still have the issue of things being weighted towards popular characters - people still know who The Knight from Hollow Knight is, even if we don't use an official image and instead used a stock image of the void or painstakingly reconstruct them in a Picrew. The main thing that gets people to vote in a tournament is connection - knowing the character or the people attached to them.

The thing that biases things against OCs in this tournament is, primarily, their limited spread - the lack of people who would be familiar with them. Though more well-known OCs can circumvent this enough to stand on firm ground with characters - someone like spotsupstuff's Three Sparrows On A Wire, for example, might have a solid chance in a tournament with canon characters, there will still be less people invested in Sparrows than there are, say, people invested Humans-B-Gone!'s Sophodra.

Because the thing with canon characters is that, by definition, you've already seen them in action. They already have a story that you can readily access, compared to an OC, where the creator has to write and present the story themself - and a story that's never been written is very, very difficult to invest people in. You can't put the emotional impact of someone you've followed for a million words up against the emotional impact of a cool design you saw in the interwebs, and if you have to create emotional investment in the space of a bio, you're naturally going to fare worse than someone who's had hundreds of pages to win you over.

Really, the only way we can see it working well is something like that @guess-that-ship's format of "text only, can't name anything that would give the game away in regards to who it is", and for obvious reasons, that's... not quite going to work the same way.

#asks #we speak #the problem is emotional investment and we can't really manufacture that from nothing #our characters fare unusually well in bio form because we're Good At Writing and also generally design them to like #be capable of being pared down to just their core points so we can easily transfer them over cross-story #one of our core OC Design Things is just like. making it so we can reuse them in any scenario they may need to be used in #so we generally have a very good grasp of their core so that we can recreate them in a different setting without losing their essence #and that translates Very Well to a bio because a bio is more or less just a review of that core with most of the story snipped away #our format works Better than some other peoples might because of that #also we don't want to use picrew but thats like. a tangent. it would be stock images only if anything #we are personally biased against picrew because picrews don't cater towards any of our character design tastes in any way shape or form #making a character through picrew in any capacity tends to be thoroughly unenjoyable for us #and then we can't even enjoy the final image because the posing has no character in it for anything but the most passive of ocs #it has to be generic in order to fit every combination of traits that someone may put into i #and though it suits the environment we personally suffer for it because we cannot handle things being sanded down like that

[muffinrag]

"why haven't you played baldur's gate 3 yet" none of them are fuckable. attractive, sure, but not fuckable. they're a mere imitation of fuckable - they're designed to be fuckable but it's too intentional; it feels like i'm being baited with fuckability but they're not. they're not fuckable. everyone is beautiful and no one is horny type game.

#prove me wrong #i keep telling everyone that it's the controls #or that the writing feels weird and overly verbose #but it's the fuckability. i don't want to fuck any of those guys. #and i haven't been pushed any fanart to convince me otherwise #also like. idk. the game just didn't grab me. i think part of it is the camera style #i vastly prefer over-the-shoulder cams. for a lot of reasons #but it's also like... idk. the cutscenes felt very intense and involved but the gameplay was just fucking boring #everyone's like 'we're gonna die from the worms in our heads' but none of that urgency transferred to the gameplay? if that makes sense? #like i was thrown into a fucking huge giant fuckoff map with an extremely unclear objective and that felt bad #turns out i have a lot of reasons why i haven't played it #but the fuckability one is funniest and also if some of them were fuckable maybe i'd be trying harder to suffer through the early game #soliloquy #baldurs gate 3 #bg3

[vamptastic]

found what seems to be an interesting paper on jewish music in the soviet union.. alas it is a grainy scan in yiddish. which i cannot speak.

#many such cases #my greatgrandparents spoke it #and my mother knows a fair amount through them bc she was very close with them #but she doesn't know enough to have taught it to me as a kid #i will probably take a class on it over the summer or once i transfer bc i know a guy who teaches it at UF #but man i just really wish i had grown up speaking it and that my ultazeyde had lived long enough to teach me some #especially because a lot of people see it as like. kind of useless because its just a language that you speak #like you don't write as much in yiddish and very few speak only yiddish #so ive been told like. just go learn modern hebrew instead and you'll understand it okay #but older stuff written about klezmer is almost always in yiddish and rarely translated

[demobatman]

i got the steddie and platonic stobin brainrot bad

#they got me writing shit like a damn. pathos. whats a classic poet name #i am no writer they just pull the passion out of me #its journaling but fiction #i say steddie like im actually writing about them and not steve and robin exposition #character studies go craaaazzyy and by studies i mean interactions from my brain onto the screen #i have their brains inside mine #give me the cadence in which you speak NNNOOOWWWW #im about to just start writing steve and robin only frfr this shit rocks #whT am i saying its 5:27 am on the clocks folks #Ill Do It Myself #me after looking through ao3 #they live in my cortex i got this guys #the duffers transfered their consciousnesses into me like chappie #yall seen chappie that movie is insane #i am barely alive rn. #ramble

[paradoxicalpaldeann]

i'd do an angsty breath of the wild/sr au to celebrate the sequel (vibrating in my chair rn btw. loved the original) but idk who to make link and all that. i could go for the low hanging fruit of kaif link and ebbz zelda but i really want to try writing from someone elses perspective, i feel as if i've sorta hyper focused on them recently

#if u have any ideas of who could be a 100-year old (ish) feral twink menace lmk #writing link as a cryptid too because i abused so many glitches on my later run throughs of the game #Inventory Slot Transfer BLSS and Apparatus glitch oh how i love you #dox rambles #salt raiders #salt raiders au #.... salt of the kingdom?

[piedoesnotequalpi]

Modern AU Jack spends all his teenage years dreaming of going to college out west (unfortunately the art school in Santa Fe closed in 2018) and he does go somewhere out west at first, but he gets so homesick he transfers to somewhere on the east coast after his freshman year

#i pulled this idea out of my butt but i think I'm right #if he likes the mountains but can't handle the distance he probably would transfer to MECA or UVM #anyway i have many plans to write things and no motivation to follow through because ✨existential dread✨ #i just stare blankly at my WIPs and planning documents #so yeah #Jack Kelly #Newsies #newsies headcanons #my posts #isabel says random stuff #also to be clear when i say west i mean mountain west and/or southwest #or *maybe* somewhere inland in California #but not in LA or whatever #Montana wyoming colorado etc are the mountain west not the Midwest!!!!!

[vulpinesaint]

what if i cried over having to take this stupid fucking rhetoric class again

#i am. oh my god. i don't know if i can do it. #i already had to take critical writing at previous college #and it was the same fucking class as ap lang but honestly stupider #and now i have to take ANOTHER. #the class i took before fulfills the requirement but i have to take the same fucking class AGAIN for SOME fucking reason???? #i hate the advisors i hate this school i'm going to kill someone and it might be myself if i have to analyze the rhetoric of another meme #I KNOW THE BASICS OF RHETORIC. IS THAT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU??? #genuinely fucking devastated by this i'm partway to full tears #i just can't fucking do it. i can't. i can't take it. #that class last spring made me Miserable and i can't sit through it again it'll Break me #can't take it this semester anyway cause it's full And conflicts with my only open work days BUT. #that's a full month for me to annoy the registrar or whoever the fuck until they give me my FUCKING CREDITS #literature and writing 115... don't put me back there... #I HAVE JUNIOR STANDING DON'T FORCE ME BACK INTO THE 100 LEVEL GEN EDS... #I'M AN ENGLISH MAJOR WITH MORE THAN 60 CREDITS I FUCKING PROMISE I KNOW HOW TO WRITE OH MY GOD!!!!! #feeling the weight of despair right now #do you think if i sob in the transfer office they'll feel bad for me or will i have to threaten violence #i don't wanna be a shitty person to people who are just trying to do their jobs but i might snap if they keep telling me i have to take it #</3 #valentine notes

[un-local]

i have conceptualized the perfect scene that my story needs to tie things together... what do you mean i have to write it down. what kind of cruel joke is that

#god help me PLEASE #elden ring ambiguity is getting me down again. please hold #[MUFFLED SCREAMING] #okay im back. im gonna transfer my work notes to my draft and start parsing through things and start building the scene from there now #still waters #writing #harebrained thought #hare posts