Avatars, Signatures, And CS's Oh My!

[Gossamer]

Does anyone else have this problem?

If you see a PC that is using a famous person as an avatar, do you automatically tend to project your feelings of that famous character the famous person portrays onto the PC?

Like for example.. I like and dislike heavily some of the Game of Throne's people. Bob Barton is back and I really like his GoT Character which he uses for his avatar. And yet there's another new PC that is using the Queen from GoT and when I look at her all I can think of is... "Yuck, wench... your totally low class. You screwed your brother and have murdered half the kingdom. Your son is a monster and your so spineless your scared shitless of him." And those feelings tend to project onto that PC because I can't help but think some of the qualities that famous character has is admired by the player and thus transferred onto the PC they are playing hence the use of the avatar. I doubt I'll really enjoy playing with the PC using that avatar because of it.

Its sad, but true. I'm just being honest here.

I know once we had a PC that had an avatar that looked developmentally handicapped.. and he had a signature that showed his same PC coming in last in a race... and he complained no one would RP with them. I just shook my head because I KNEW WHY no one would RP with him...

It should have been obvious.

Super hot avatars - especially women with the 'come @(#$ me now' faces really bother me... and at the same time I love the quirky ones that show lots of personality or are more noble looking. Descriptions have the same effect. If folks talk about heaving boosums in their description or very curvy lush bodies I get all.. .ugh. Same with guys who describe themselves as one of the tallest, or strongest of their races...

I also tend to think huge signatures and box codes are cries for attention.

So how do Avatars and signatures impact you? Do you let CS descriptions influence you? Do you look past that to see the writing? Is there any other character pet peeves you see that might help new people in picking avatars and signatures?

I think as a group we should talk about this!

[Vick]

I always find it odd how people just picture the avatar and never look past it and see the writing. It's why I went without an avatar for the longest time all in all.

People could use blobs of color for avatars and it would not make me second guess myself if I want to write with them. I see the CS and past threads.

[S'Essy]

Queen GoT character... who are you talking about?

As I said, for me an avatar is an avatar. I agree that somebody has picked an avatar for a reason but I always try to see that avatar in a new way the pc uses it and try to seperate it from it's "original" character. And everyone reacts differently for an avatar I know it happens with me as well. If I don't like an avatar, I will ignore it and I will focus on the PC anyway...

But yeah I agreed we should avoid super hot avatars... they are disturbing. And signatures well... if it's not something DEEP-TEEN-WISE saying stuff, then it's awesome.

[Kreig Messer]

I honestly don't quite know how to answer that Goss. Quite frankly I don't let the Avatar or CS pic influence my character greately, though I do admit when I chose my character my first image was a pretty boy....my current image is still a pretty boy and my post template has a pretty boy as well XD. Honestly I guess it came from the habbit that every RP I was part of had 'pretty' characters and I never chose differently. Don't know if I'll ever choose other images though its a possibility.


RP wise I never let it influence my character, if I know an image from a show I just remember 'This is Miz' and that the character isn't from that show. Separating the fictional realities is easy for me and makes writing easier of course. As for huge signatures and boxcodes... I never really gave it much thought or notice, I hardly notice even with glasses ^^;.

[Bonnibell Carson]

Georgie Henley (who I’ve only seen in Narnia) is a sweet girl. Looty is a shit. But her looks suited what I wanted for Looty and she’s older now so she could grow with my character. Bonnie model was because Kat Dennings seemed to have a bit in common with the characters she portrays. To that effect I think I wanted people to be influenced by the Avi’s and Sig’s. ‘Tis why I made them.

Sadly, this means other characters are the same. If I see a super serious Avi, I think super serious character because I figure that is the face they make, that is what my character sees so that is how they act. It’s a hard distinction to make. Sometimes serious faces don’t mean serious characters. And if I see some actor I like (or dislike) I have to try not to make my characters like (or dislike) them based off my feelings.

I think it’s a bit hard to completely expect everyone to have no feeling for a persons model portrayal. But in that case I would say if your character is a douche, then get an actor who plays a douche. No misconceptions there. If your character is super smiley, try and find a smiley model. Or someone who plays a happy person.

On the note of boxcodes and sig size, it does bother me a bit. But mostly because when I try to read posts on my phone I have five minutes of loading, then scrolling because the picture is friggin’ ginormous! I prefer smaller pictures myself but it doesn’t really reflect the character for me. They’re just nice to look at.

As for describing characters on the CS. I think besides how they move and the basics we should never describe a character. No other RPer will react the same to a person or see the same things. It frustrates me to see detailed descriptions because then I feel like I can’t portray them the way my character sees them. So, if they say heaving bosom I feel like I have to say they have a heaving bosom too because it was so diligently pointed out.

[Raien Ironarm Pitrius]

Well.. so.. I said I was going to do this and here's my thoughts and opinions on the matter, completely baseless or judgmental as they may be. As for avatars and famous people I'd have to say it irks me a little. As you said it just makes you think its some kind of subconscious admiration on some level. It also makes me feel as if they're going to either stick to clique tropes or copy a non cliche character. Most likely the one they used as they're avatar. If someone makes a mage and uses Merlin as their avatar.. Well I'm sorry but I'm going to be judgy.

Besides the copycat mindset that it makes me feel these players have, the use of well known avatars also conveys something else to me. They most likely at least in my mind, were too lazy to find a unknown and thus unused faceclaim. And this for me I think makes me worry subconsciously that their rp will be just as lazy or just boring.

I try not to judge, honestly before I wrote this I might tell you I'd look the other way. And I think I still would somewhat. However a lot of my opinions are not so much decisions and biases I'm pushing on other players they're more like things I'm not really consciously making any effort to think about they're just there somewhere in the back of my mind. And even though I'd never, and have not to this day refused a thread that I could feasibly do on any site. I hate to admit that your thread might be on the bottom of my list unless I've threaded with you or read your threads.

Now that brings me to another point. The actual quality of your writing in my eyes is more important than any image associated with your account. And as Goss brought up in chat. We tend to weed out the cliche or bad rp'ers that do claim such profile pictures. Unfortunately this also brings me to another point of thought. How you use your writing abilities to portray your character also effects my judgments of you greatly. The second I hear anything such as "glistening curves" or "a face to rival the gods themselves"... Well I'm turned off to rp. I mean if you have points in seduction or related arts then by all means make me drool... But if you don't I feel like you should keep it at a minimum, not everyone is a goddess.. And it makes me feel like you care about your character more than actual rp.


Sorry if I offended anyone here, just my opinions. And I know for at least some of these that others share them. And that its not just my cynical mind at work. Also if you commit one of these things but have amazing rp... Well I don't care, everything I just said I'm throwing out the window and forcing you to rp with me. Its just that there is a stigma associated with this kind of use of avatars. I wish it wasn't there but it is and I'm effected by it as well.

[Edric Wingard]

If there is anything that I am more judgmental over, it is someone's Character Sheet.

Obviously to me, great writing is incredibly important, but one's CS is almost like a teaser into what that writer is capable of bringing to the table. Considering that it is probably going to be one of your most viewed threads, I like to think that it is the one that you'd be hyper-attentive to. Thus, if someone's CS is full of grammar or punctuation errors, I silently wonder if that is something that I'm going to then come across while writing with them, so it definitely becomes a deterrent to me.

Some Pet Peeves I do have over CSs lies in either obnoxious description, or the lack thereof. If I'm looking at your sheet, I'm there to get a feel for your character and if there is hardly anything to read over, I get somewhat annoyed and confused over what the point was to create such a thread. I understand that it is mandatory, but I've never been one to be satisfied with giving the bare minimum in order to pass, so it again, is something that makes me hesitate about writing with others.

Avatars and Signature-wise, I'm not really picky. I do feel like in the current setting of Mizahar, animated characters feel somewhat out of place, but that won't stop me from writing with someone. I generally imagine their characters differently in my head as we write. As for signatures, I find the limitations that are set here to be fine and I don't often get bothered by them.

In regards to the often used models and actors[esses], I don't mind that either. I get really excited though when someone has an avatar or character that fits so perfectly into their description, or goes completely against the grain of superficiality.

[Eleazar Victor Syroin]

I can see where Goss is coming from. Eleazar's model is Colin O'Donoghue, who is famous for playing Captain Hook (Killian Jones) in the TV series Once Upon a Time.

But at the time of choosing him I didn't know that. I choose him simply because his face matched the idea I had going for my PC at the time, a dark haired scruffy bearded street rat with pale eyes. It was only later did I realize, due to chat fangirling over the man, that he was an actor and fairly famous. Now I have a few people trying to thread with me, for 'Killian Jones' but not for my actual PC, who isn't meant to be that pretty just a dirty sunberthian thief.

As for large box codes and signatures, they annoy me. They take a lot of time to load properly and often cause my computer to freeze whilst it loads them. After that they just get in the way of what I'm trying to read.

[Ehati]

I did elaborate on some of my peeves regarding avatars in the chat, so here they are, in all their possibly offensive glory.

I dislike anime avatars, very strongly. If I see a Light Yagami, a Sakura Haruno, a Goku, a Ginta or Phantom or whatever the hell you want from your favourite anime, I immediately feel disdain. I can tolerate it from an ST account, just a little, but as a player wanting to play primarily with other characters, the sight of an anime face leering at me as if to say, 'guess who's heeeeeeeeeeeere, bebs!', I just... can't take them seriously. I think I make the unconscious assumption that people with poorly chosen avatars from an anime write like poop. Yes. Seriously. I think that they subconsciously want to play the character in their avatar, and a lot of the time, I do not even read their character sheets.

I just can't take them seriously.

This doesn't exactly extend towards characters using avatars made through different mediums, like painting and digital art. I guess I haven't learned so many stereotypes regarding them, these people that use these models, that I'm less bothered.

Of course, if an anime-user wows me with a post, I can place aside my bias and take interest enough in looking over their CS. I guess, in closing for this particular peeve, anime characters are an annoyance disliked through a healthy dose of stereotypes gleaned from other sites where people who use them write like poop.


My next peeve is a real life model dressed poorly, as in with the bare minimum or, heaven forbid, even less than the bare minimum. I just can't stand seeing so much skin, provocative poses, or that glassy eyed stare reminiscent of either a doping session gone bad or poor photoshop. I do not want to imagine your character in a thong and a bandeau. I do not want to think of him covering his junk with a weapon. Jesus, cleanse my soul and cover these people up. Slap a blindfold on the eyes on that chick before her soulless gaze steals my faith in mankind. Take the wheels and guide me away from this unholy gallery of barely clad supermodels and back to the place where the immature don't run around in bikini bottoms with their gloriously long hair covering their breasts.

Even more unappealing is where, as stated above, the writer portrays their character as lasciviously as possible in their CSes and, heaven forbid, their everyday posts. PLEASE DO NOT ELABORATE ON THE PERFECTION OF YOUR BREASTS IN YOUR THREADS. I don't like reading about bulging pectorals, thigh gap, thick necks ribbed with veins, or impressive heights. I also incredibly dislike really short characters that belong to a race allowed to be taller on average. People know averages, right? Because I like it when a character is average, and so many tiny women and huge men just...

No.

These are my pet peeves.

I can overlook them if provided with posts that better portray their creative abilities (and that don't include personal descriptions bordering on the textbook definition of Mary Sue).

[Elsa Marin]

Presented in poorly formatted list form because I have no imagination or drive

Avatars: Thumbnail of the character. Celebrity/model/realperson avatars remain creepy. Fallon excluded, since that is actually Fallon, which is hella cool. Reason I don't have an avatar yet is 'cause I haven't gotten around to editing the image Elsa is based on to match her described hair/eye color.

Signatures: Whatever, yo. You want to use your signature to get attention? Go right ahead, brother. My second attempt at a character here had a signature that was just me begging people to PM me and plot with me.

CS: If it's impressive, I am impressed. For real though all you need is the relevant info and we're good to go. Anything more is a bonus. I have a high but fine tolerance for purple prose and self-indulgence. The only reason Elsa isn't short as heck is because I went with sibling resemblance over self-indulgence and I regret it to this day.

Post templates: Having to scroll side to side to read your post makes me sad. Overly complicated post templates also make me sad. Having to squint or highlight to read your post makes me super sad. Readability is key.

Writing is inherently self-indulgent. We have an entire branch of divine magic dedicated to making your character the perfect sub, the races span the entire spectrum of animal behavior, degree of dress, and tendency towards sexual slavery and regular slavery, one of which was literally designed in-world to be the perfect servant with variable mental maturity, variable treatment, near-constant nudity, and collars that come in everything from leather to solid gold. We have magical hypnotism, deadly pregnancies, healers to hand-wave diseases, and shapeshifting. There's even vanilla!

We ride together we write together we disgust and disturb our peers together.