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EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Character Development => Topic started by: Ava Starfire on 02 Aug 2012, 08:17
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So, yeah.
There's quite a few things I did with Ava that I wish I hadnt; portions of her history, attitudes, etc, and it has hampered my desire to play her in a lot of ways. I wish:
I regret having any connection with slavery in her past.
I wish I hadnt had her come from such a primitive background.
I wish I had played her a bit less "GRR", a bit more "Look ma, I'm goin Fast!"
A few other things that have annoyed me but are comparatively minor.
So, yeah. Basically that. I like the character, she feels "real" enough in many ways, but these things just bug me and kind of direct what I do with her, and not always to my liking. Wish I could undo em. =/
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According to the Fun Doctrine, you can undo, retcon, or hand-wave away anything you don't like about your character. After all, you're the one paying for the subscription, presumably so that you can have fun, not feel burdened or disheartened.
Granted, other folks are free to interpret inconsistency as madness, but that could be fun in its own right.
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Everything except the very first one is easy to ignore.
"I was primitive but now I am a transhuman goddess!"
"I was angry but SHIT life is fun now"
Slavery is harder to handwave, I think, but it's so overplayed that people wouldn't notice if you just sort of never talked about it again.
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I've been in that boat a few times, Ava.
As Casiella said, the later two can be RPed out. Consider them opportunities for your character to grow. So she was angry in the past? Maybe she's realized that there's more to life now than just being angry and seeking revenge? So she was from a primitive background? Maybe this has pushed her to learn more and refine herself?
A person's background provides motivation for them to develop as a character, if you don't like what that background has done to your character thus far, find a way for your character to take a different lesson from it and thus a different path.
As far as slavery goes, it's one of those topics that apparently very, very few people can handle with any level of maturity or realism in this game which is part of what makes playing Amarr and Minmatar so irritating sometimes. You can't really handwave her past relationship with slavery but what you can do is change how it's affected her. There's a lot of ways you can work with it and I would love to sit down and chat with you about them all, it's what friends do.
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Funny you talk about that now, since I have had the same issue with Lyn for a week or so. I am facing something I never had to face in the past which is a character that lived more than 5 years, and still going. Added to the fact that it was not a clean cut character that I created with all her BG in mind (was my first character and I had no knowledge of the lore when I started), the character has itself become way too much convoluted and messy for my own taste. It is the opposite of a simple, clear, clean character BG that works. And it is starting to slowly annoy me more and more.
I am thinking of a global retcon over several things now. Ofc it starts to get problematic when it is about core things that I can't decently change too much without... well, creating discrepancies.
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Or dump the character, assume her story is complete, and start fresh.
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Or dump the character, assume her story is complete, and start fresh.
I do have the alt I made for the Thukker thing. The problem with that, in eve terms, is the incredible investment of time into skills. It takes a LONG time for a new character to become as proficient in things as one Ava's age.
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The fun is often in dealing with those constraints, though. Are you having more fun with Ava and all of her skills or with your baby Thukker struggling to fit a Rifter?
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The fun is often in dealing with those constraints, though. Are you having more fun with Ava and all of her skills or with your baby Thukker struggling to fit a Rifter?
Just let me say, flying my all level 5 wolf with blingfit, pirate implants, and exile dosent suck.
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A possible way to "retcon" a few things. It is very extreme though.
Works best with chars with a name that can pass for a nickname.
It is the Dread Pirate Roberts route. Or Spartacus if you prefer.
esp. if you have a char resculpt available, then hugely change appearance and portrait, and change the name of the character.
Old Ava Starfire was Avlynka Suirinonen, Seibestor from Mirkamurka.
New Ava Starfire is ??? from ???, inheriting the name to continue things.
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As others have said, if you want her personality to change then find an excuse for the change to happen.
You don't need to retcon the elements you don't like anymore. Just use them differently. Have her decide to put the slave part of her life behind her "dwelling on this would be like letting the slaver still own part of me" say?
Why where her tribe so isolated & primitive? Is it possible they where just poor and the influx of funds from Ava means they are less primitive now?
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Granted, other folks are free to interpret inconsistency as madness, but that could be fun in its own right.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
+1
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As others have said, if you want her personality to change then find an excuse for the change to happen.
You don't need to retcon the elements you don't like anymore. Just use them differently. Have her decide to put the slave part of her life behind her "dwelling on this would be like letting the slaver still own part of me" say?
Why where her tribe so isolated & primitive? Is it possible they where just poor and the influx of funds from Ava means they are less primitive now?
I am not sure if it is the "now" that she cares about ? I don't know but that is my case at least. There are things in my BG that I just do not appreciate or that annoy me. What annoys me is located in the past.
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Don't forget to have fun.
Emphasize and focus on what you want to, and you can ignore the parts you don't like with a minimum of hand-waving.
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Spend more time with meeee :D
When I get back that is.
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Change the character into something you're happy playing. Dark slave pasts can be gotten over, at least partially. Bad moods can soften. Refinement and modernity learned.
Later, someone with bones to pick will sputter at you how you said X in the past, but are saying Y now, probably to try and score points in a completely unrelated discussion. The proper answer to that brand of shenanigans is something along the lines of "that was the past. If you care such a great deal about it, you probably should have stayed there."
One person's character growth is another person's wholly misplaced feeling of inconsistency.
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If it's gotten too bad, one option might be to keep Ava around for the sake of her SP and assets while starting a new character to roleplay with. Might not be what you want, though.
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Or go with the classic soap-opera solution with an Eve-twist: a minor cloning accident that produces some degree of amnesia and/or personality change (IRL, traumatic brain injury can in fact produce personality changes in some cases, as can brain tumors. I see no reason why a bobble in the interface during a jump-clone or medical clone activation might not have some similar effect).
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Seconding the various comments about figuring out what you'd prefer to play and seeing if you can bridge Ava there.
In addition to the ideas offered, I find you can get away with a lot if you decide that it doesn't much matter what you do now so long as you're the best active pilot you can be to answer the call when the second Day of Darkness comes. There are many levels of playing the long game: maybe Ava decides to focus on a different one of them for a time.
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I regret having any connection with slavery in her past.
Why? What is it about slavery that bothers you so much? Whatever that thing is, shouldn't you be able to ignore it in your RP?
I wish I hadnt had her come from such a primitive background.
As part of a Caldari alliance, you have an opportunity to have Ava undergo all kinds of special training and such to be more refined and more educated. You can handwave all sorts of neat ways to have her suddenly be well spoken and much more learned. I guess what I'm saying is, use the changes to Ava's current situation to your advantage.
I wish I had played her a bit less "GRR", a bit more "Look ma, I'm goin Fast!"
There's no reason she can't be less grr now, right?
A few other things that have annoyed me but are comparatively minor.
Like what?
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Why? What is it about slavery that bothers you so much? Whatever that thing is, shouldn't you be able to ignore it in your RP?
This may not be the same with Ava, but I know for me the biggest problem is that people seem largely incapable of handling the topic of slavery and religion with any level of maturity.
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Why? What is it about slavery that bothers you so much? Whatever that thing is, shouldn't you be able to ignore it in your RP?
This may not be the same with Ava, but I know for me the biggest problem is that people seem largely incapable of handling the topic of slavery and religion with any level of maturity.
I actually find the opposite. Characters who are religious find it impossible to speak with someone who isn't religious in a mature manner, ie discussing their religion, answering questions about it, identifying flaws and then finding creative ways around them. That'd be some good RP. Instead it degenerates down to these two very basic statements.
Person 1 : "Your religion is bad"
person 2 : "HEATHEN!"
re: slavery, much the same is true. slavers either seem to immediately make it about religion, and then revert to statement 1 above. Otherwise, anti-slaver cites information about vitoxin, torture, beatings, threats of physical violence, slaver dogs, etc, and then slaver reverts to "but I don't treat my slaves like that, I'm the BEST SLAVE OWNER EVER." The exception to the rule would be those rare individuals who state instead that yes, they do use those methods to keep their flock in line. As part of the Amarr faith is that pain and punishment is part of process of bringing others into the light of their god, as per their scripture. Then just accept the hate that flows their way as due course from unbelievers.
Back on OP;
I think that Ava might dislike having slavery in her past because it is so stero-typical to be a minmatar capsuleer and either post-slave or present-slave. In fact Logan is a minmatar capsuleer and a post-slave. However an Angel cartel slave vice an Amarr slave. He was only a slave for a few years, so he's not quite as indoctrinated.
Ava, if you are looking to move past being a slave, then just move past it. Time heals all wounds, just stop mentioning it, and as lots of people have said, the past doesn't have to define who you want your character to be now.
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Logan, that's my point.
The people playing religious character and slavers AS WELL AS the people opposing them can't handle it with maturity. I wasn't pointing in one direction or the other.
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Logan, that's my point.
The people playing religious character and slavers AS WELL AS the people opposing them can't handle it with maturity. I wasn't pointing in one direction or the other.
My apologies, mis-read your comment initially. carry on :)
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I ran into the same sense of dissatisfaction on Rek, post TRA breakup. What I will say is making a new character to restart does suck on the SP front: Shiroh struggles to fit an Incursus while Rek can slap all the things onto a Firetail. I'd reccomend doing what Kyber suggested if you're really intent on playing on a dedicated reroll. For example, even though Shiroh lacks the SP of Rek, I can still benefit from my years of playing on Rek by metagaming and contracting valuable trinkets between the two chars. There's nothing saying your new Thukker can't happen to know Avlynka and receive the occasional gift :lol:
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[mod]Split off slavery tangent. Let me know if I got any of them mixed up.[/mod]