How Do You View Your Relationship With Your Characters?

[Alyssa]

Are your characters your babies? Something you made but cannot control, where you are sad when they get hurt and proud when they succeed?

Are they your creations? Did you form them with love and then release them into the world, omnipresently watching and sometimes interfering?

Are they actors you've hired? Folks you find that are best fit for the job, that can annoy you at times or take the character in a direction you never expected?

How do you think of them?

[ISNEKO]

I like to view myself with my numerous characters like an anime; none of them are related to me but for some reason they have moved into my home and decided to be my family.

According to friend, because I'm so reserved, my characters are in fact my own personalities that I have refused to express.

[Vanesalisa]

there are times I view myself with the MC also their quirkiness

[MoonSquid]

I think my characters are pretty interchangably thought of as children, friends, and actors. I'm proud of them and sad for them, irritated with them, but know that I can't really control them and can't begrudge their ability to make choices (even if they are different from choices I would make myself).

But I can also imagine them turning up for the day, dishevelled with coffee, getting done up, and putting themselves in the scenes when it's time to work! So maybe, children who are recreating their lives for entertainment purposes? I don't know XD

[monotone_ink]

I see my characters as those that I feel obliged to test - in their limitations as humans, their persistence through the most unspeakable of tragedies, and how long they can uphold their morals and well-being until they begin to crash down.

I can't help but to feel sympathy for them the whole time though, and it can be a bit depressing when I reflect on how they themselves are reflections of parts of me - parts of me that I did not intend on writing into their characters.

[yondoloki]

I tend to get way too much joy out of making my characters miserable. I'm their evil overlord and I control them, I guess that's what happens when you start creating characters to cope with your own shitty life

Nevertheless I love my characters. They have helped me through very though times. They would probably try and kill me if they ever met me though...

[joannekwan]

Aaaahh, well I always refer to my characters as "my boys" or "my girls" (or anything else in between/beyond).
I suppose I see most of them as cool acquaintances/friends whose experiences I'm recording or retelling. Of course I'd be down to date some of them too though.

[miesmud]

My characters are a bit like fashion dolls to me... I love them, they are like my most precious possessions, and I want the world to like them too. But yet the thing I like most about them is dressing them up

[ryoko]

Hmm...One of my characters I have trouble controlling as she likes to dominate the storyline, but for the most part I draw the adventure they're having inside of my head 24hrs a day :-= If I could join them on their journey, I totally would. Drawing them doing their thing makes me feel like I'm with them, though. I love all of them and they're very dear to me and I do feel guilty putting them in harm's way.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

I wouldn't say I'm an evil god to them, more like an apathetic one out to give them a shit-load of obstacles. I know what successes and failures they're going to have and how they're going to deal with it. At least in terms of main characters.

Support characters and other secondary characters I like to think of as symbols. It makes it easy because I can think, "Well, how would this concept interact with this one".

But most of all, I do my best to toy with my readers. There's going to be a lot of mystery going on and I want to see if they can figure things out along side the characters. That is the best part of all!

[indagold]

I see my characters the way I make food. Hopefully it doesn't taste gross and can be consumed without making someone sick.

[Nugtown]

It's like playing Sims. I made and built a home for them, then set them all free. Sometimes I pull the strings, sometimes I watch things just go to their logical conclusion. Sometimes that means someone loses something dear to them, or they bank a success that you were just itching to see. They're not "my babies" or "children", they're like toys.

I tend to get way too much joy out of making my characters miserable. I'm their evil overlord and I control them, I guess that's what happens when you start creating characters to cope with your own shitty life

Ya hit the nail on the head my friend

[Mocha]

Since a lot of my characters are initially based on one of my personality traits or experiences before they get developed into their own characters, they're kind of like little pieces of me that have become their own person in a way. Though sometimes I do kinda think of them as my "children". I often refer to my favourite character as "my precious son" or "MAH BOIIII".

[AmysGames]

I love my characters and they're my babies, but I'm often cruel to them so they tend to hate me. It's a complicated relationship.

[NickRowler]

All my characters are my babies, even the ones who are older than me. I would never make a character which I hate with a passion or out of pure spite. I still have bad/evil characters, but I do not make straw men.

A lot of my older characters are based off of other characters in media. Some are more obvious. And some are more harder to guess. Most of my newer characters are just random.

In some ways I feel like I have a sort of a twisted reality for my characters. Someone always has to die, someone always has to suffer from being a cog in a system. Before writing Crow's Worth, I did go through and "save" some people's lives. There were about 6 people who were dead in the original version who are not in the final version.

There are characters who were also completely rewritten. Originally Miss really loved her mother, a woman who died shortly after fleeing her home country with her kids. In the current version, her mother is less saintly and less dead.

The characters Shoo-Fly and Crow's father were completely rewritten. There were other characters who I debated on making very different.

[spadesart]

[MsRockTheClock]

Ah geez, that's complicated. Um some I love, some I hate, some I tolerate. They're all different, but I'd definitely punch a few in the face or maybe just a smack in the back of the head XD

[azureXtwilight]

I dunno if it's accurate, but it's like playing god? You create them, you build situations for them, and you write them as what they would act with their personality, Even though you bring misfortunes to their lives, you still love them anyway XD

Also everyone who gets shipped in my comic gets an instant ship cannon and their life will be 100% more miserable

[ghostmaya]

I see my Characters as my life... my love life

[ahhvecadoes]

I'm a very empathetic person, so it's hard not to go on an emotional roller coaster when writing my characters, but I do see them less as my "children" and more as these people I get to watch evolve and have the privilege of telling about to others.

I am totally guilty of calling Teo and Joaquin "my boys". They were originally a part of a legacy family in the Sims and I watched them grow up, in a way.