On roleplaying, in general, and character relationships

Working on a general Blaine-in-Districtmancy post at the moment, and got sidetracked.

For the last few years, most of the characters I've roleplayed intensively have been transplants from other storylines of mine. Cecelia, Stacia, and Vlad are the only characters I played for any length of time that were completely original, created for the game. They've all inserted themselves into other stories, but they didn't have their roots in those plots. Tanavir, Nevaru, Nick, Liall, Spots, and Lenore were all from other stories of mine, even if they were transformed by the game.

They weren't all transformed completely; mostly, their origins and backstories suffered radical makeovers, but their personalities didn't actually change terribly much. Tanavir was always a bitch with weird attachment complexes- but her original incarnation didn't have a clan or a family. She was just a wandering vampire chick with a vaguely obsessive crush on a sixteen year old girl. Still a bitch, though, and perfectly willing to turn on any of her companions.

Nevaru was never an alcoholic, originally- and, originally, he was in love with Tanavir. I was hoping to keep him around as a character so I could develop that, but then Tana became a demi goddess and the campaign shifted continents, so that idea got scrapped. The original Neru was a demon slayer.

Spots went from being a fanatical freedom fighter to an archaeologist with terrible luck; the original Spots MacDowell wouldn't have recognized d20 Spots in the slightest. d20 Spots, however, is totally a proto-Blaine, from his curses and bad luck to his inability to shoot things. Spots probably underwent the most radical changes, both character and background-wise.

Len comes in at a close second; she was the angel of music from Boffo, and she became a twenty-something pyrokinetic with a deep abiding love of TS Eliot and a job as a fencing instructor. Same general attitude towards the world- very happy-go-lucky, somewhat crazy. Lots of protective instincts towards her family.

Nick and Liall didn't change much, even if Nick, in Blue Rose, is a lot goofier than Toggle!Nick. His bigotry manifested itself in game in silly ways that aren't funny at all, in the story. I just don't like playing incredibly serious characters in a game. Levity is good. And Liall is generally less of a hardass- but the important thing that remains true to both characters, in both universes, is that Liall takes her job very seriously, while Nick doesn't take it seriously at all. Nick is very loyal, yes- but in Toggle, he's loyal to his wife and his horse and, eventually, Aya. His entire character rests on his obsession with a fairy tale- he sees himself as the wandering knight, in search of adventure, with his untouchable, beautiful, noble female companion. (The Tale of the Templar is something I ought to write someday- it's a lot of standard fairy tale nonsense, with a properly tragic fairy tale ending. The Templar kills himself, and the girl lives forever- that's where the story ends. In reality, the girl raises horses for a while, and then leaves to open a bar in the city- The Templar's Rest.)

Nick's connection to the Tale of the Templar colors much of what he does in Toggle; less so in Blue Rose. Liall's obsession with her job showed up more in Blue Rose than it will in Toggle- she is a soldier first, above everything else. After that, she is Nick's wife and Aya's friend- or, in Blue Rose context, Skoros' friend.

I used a lot of Toggle characters in Dead Inside, since DMing Dead Inside was mostly just a chance to wank over the NPCs. But because they were all NPCs, and I was in control of half of the game, they didn't change much. The Dead Inside universe was as much like the Toggle universe as I needed it to be. Yeah, Foxbird ended up being a member of the police, but she does eventually end up doing that anyway (sort of). Everyone else was more or less unchanged. Theron was a little more badass, Stella was a little more crazy (Triforces everywhere!), Blaine was slightly more despondent than usual (with good reason, he likes to point out), but that was about it. Silverlock was the same mix of sleazy and pathetic he is in his original incarnation (sad, but true).

Using preexisting characters in roleplay is fun and useful for getting to know your characters in different contexts. I wouldn't be nearly as close to Nick or Liall without having roleplayed them- that does, however, make their deaths that much more painful for everyone involved. And Tanavir never would've seen the light of day without getting roleplayed. On the other hand, it does change them- Nick wasn't actually a bigot until Sammy's character started hitting on him, and Blaine was probably a whole lot happier before Dead Inside.

Some characters like shifting universes- Silverlock is a slut in every sense of the word, and is always up for a new perspective. Blaine doesn't enjoy change as much, as it tends to make him miserable. I don't know if it's stress I've been dealing with or the characters' difficulties adapting to new universes, but so far whenever I try roleplaying Blaine and Silverlock, they end up separating. They'll be back together by the end of the first plot arc of Districtmancy, but still. They've been going through all sorts of crazy issues for the last year or so.

Characters go through cycles, same as everything else. There was a point in time during which anything I wrote about Opal and Tyler involved in vicious arguments and cycles of self loathing. They've since gotten over that, in my head, and are one of my personal OTPs. So I'm not terribly worried about Blaine and Silverlock; they've been an OTP of mine for years- they predate Boffo, even.

I just find it interesting to track how my characters relate to each other in the backmatter in my head. It was easier with Opal and Tyler, since I did actually finish their story. Toggle is such an enormous undertaking for me, in terms of scope and plot, and I may never finish it. So the characters are all in a sort of limbo; everything I write for them is subject to change. This is good, in some ways, because it means I don't have to worry about writing characters into a corner. But it can also be frustrating for me and the characters, because there is no preexisting framework of a story in which to set things.

I've mostly come to accept that the only things I write really are just thinly veiled epic romance stories. More on that later, maybe; I need to get out of the habit of writing ridiculously long posts here.