Characters you (over)identify or connect with

Since it came up over at ITA. Talk about characters that make you go "holy shit, this is me!" Also characters that become ridiculusly important to you for whatever reason.

A little note, everyone will have different headcanons, but since people will be very invested in the characters discussed here, please be willing to agree to disagree sometimes so this thread doesn´t devolve into constant argument. On that note, yes CAA is a wonderful example of being invested in a fictional character gone really badly, please don´t make this thread all about them.

I can become invested in characters easily, but current examples would be:
Nepeta: We share love of cats, roleplaying and tea, and even our starsign. I however am the opposite of outdoorsy.

Enkidi Galgal, aka Galley: This one is not quite as easy, we share medical phobia and hm.. a certain /feel/ of fucked up in the head, but Galley is several orders of magnitude more screwed over by life and brainwierd than me.
Fairly newly, Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier. see, Galley pretty much. Will try to explain myself better when more spoons.

 

Ugh, I feel this. Most portrayals of bucky in fanfiction sound like me in my own head.

In high school i identified really strongly as Sherlock (the bbc version) [I think "troubled genius" appealed to me on some level] and then as I got into college I changed more towards watson

briar moss from tamora pierce's circle series

weirdly enough thomas/tomas/tamuzzi from hal duncan's vellum & ink, partially in spite and partially because of the fact that he was always written from the viewpoint of another character (I think)

Probably some more. i will also return to explain at some point

 

It's kind of apropos that I really identify with all my sun sign trolls.
Porrim: Sex-positive, poly relationship, obsessive momming my loved ones (when I have the spoons).
Kanaya: I too would like to chainsaw Gamzee and Eridan in half. She takes absolutely no shit and neither do I. Also, I have lipstick that looks like hers, and I'm probably a Sylph.
Latula: Rad yet disabled. On medication like her. I headcanon her as trans oops and I too identify as Not Cis.
Terezi: BONER FOR JUSTICE. Also, I'm a Mind player, and her Land is so. pretty. I headcanon her as Not Cis and guess what.

If I could cherry-pick those parts of them and wrap them all up in twine and skin I'd be looking at myself.

 

norm the genie from fairly oddparents. always norm the genie, 'cause i'm me.

the weird thing is, though, i don't even think he's much like me. i mean, he's not autistic at all. he doesn't have anxiety either. the only thing, brainweird-wise, that i can possibly have in common with him is, well, my adhd headcanon.

i think my identification with him might be a bit wishfulfillmenty, sorta. 'cause, like, he's really confident (or at least is really good at putting up that facade), goes after what he wants and takes no shit. which, yeah, are traits i really admire. the only one, really, that i possess is the Going After What I Want trait, i think. everything else i admire... not really...

and he's sassy. which is something i think i learned how to do by being obsessed with him, haha.

on a less wishfulfillmenty note, there is also lots of angst fodder in his arc, which satsifies that part of my id.

anyway, haha, i have a norm the genie thread in the general chatter subforum, which i expect will give you a better explanation of who the heck norm the genie is than i could ever do here.

 

Literally everyone I know from the Homestuck fandom pegs me for Rose Lalonde. I don't disagree.

This is hilarious since I have Jade's hair.

 

I get that way about equius a tiny bit. He's so faily and clueless and tries so hard and just Doesnt Get why hes following all the Rules and its still not working out??? And the control stuff an the kinks and the trying to live up to social mores that arent even actually things anymore and just. Uuuugh. I pretty much was exactly equius in highschool and I could have really done with having a nepeta back then too. Looking back on it now in my thirties I want to smoosh that stupid little failbaby up so much and also write him lots of porn. I really want him to grow up somehow to be happy. :(

 

I have a thing for (often psychopathic) minor villains working for/being manipulated by major villains that probably started with Edmund Pevensie and culminated in an almost decade-long obsession with Seta Soujirou. (I'm less invested now, but I still got pretty excited about the live-action Rurouni Kenshin movies because live-action Soujirou. I don't have a good imagination for faces, so 3D versions of 2D characters are of interest to me.)

I don't think I really identified with any of them, but they were definitely ridiculously important to me for still-unknown reasons. And I still get easily attached to characters who are violent and loyal.

The only other characters that come to mind are Magda and Jennet from @jacktrash 's The Forge of Dawn. I identify a bit with both of them, and also ... I think that may have been the first time I saw something of myself in a female character? They feel more real to me than characters in books usually do.

 

I have been told on a number of occasions that I am one of the Maryams. I fuss about a lot over people, often to the point of overextending myself. I've had difficulties with actually addressing problems until they were far too late. Indeed I've often just excused and enabled people to act awfully and hurt both themselves and me. I've had trouble with reacting far too aggressively to problems. Creating things is one of my main drives. I had an angry feminist stage and have since evened out.

On a funny note I am also the vampire fangirl. I am the girl that tasted a bit of my own blood hoping it would taste good. When I learned it didn't I took to drinking red colored juices and pretending. While I stuck more to folklore and older books than the sexy saucy vampire novellas that Kanaya (and possibly Porrim) read I was in fact very, very obsessed with the things and becoming one.

I relate to the Maryams a lot.

The other important character to me is Aranea. Aranea is a big sore spot for a lot of people and I do understand why. She is selfish, delusional, mean, abusive, a liar and so on. Aranea's importance to me is because I had an Aranea. He was douchey in general and I happened to be one of the unlucky people who got on his bad side. See he was in love with me and just kind of endlessly intrigued by me and how I worked. As well as getting off on just how much attention I was showering upon him. But he was a passive aggressive dick and, as I eventually learned, someone who bullied people I had romantic feelings for. As well as someone who attempted to orchestrate numerous schemes to destroy my relationships. And then there's how he treated me personally. He knew my buttons and he knew my issues and he used those to bully me without me realizing what he was doing.

This person is now my best friend. A fact that inspired the surprise of some friends of mine when I recounted a story about how he helped me through a panic attack. I'm still really fucking pissed off that anyone had the gall to go "why do you still talk to him" when I just told a story about how he just helped me through a panic attack. Have some motherfucking tact, people.

But why would I be friends with someone that acted so much like Aranea and happened to have abused me in the past? It's because he got better. He honestly did improve. He also did something that he really didn't have to do. Basically he ended up accidentally destroying my relationship with my girlfriend. Something that he had previously actually attempted to do so he could have me to himself I guess. This time he succeeded and entirely by accident. He didn't want to. It just happened. Now he could have just gone "Sorry" or just fucked off. But he did what no one else did.

See everyone else was just giving me sympathies. What he gave me though was actual ways to go about things and fixing them proactively. Also it worked. I got my girlfriend back and found a best friend in the process. Talk is great but it's also pretty cheap. Sometimes you need the mad person who wants to set the world on fire with their brilliant scheme.

So seeing Aranea is honestly kind of eerie. It's also very, very fucking depressing. So much of her bullshit is shit he's done. So much of what drives her is what drives him. He got better. He became a good person. Aranea has that potential and she might never reach it. Which is really fucking sad to me. Everyone can improve. Everyone can be a good person. Everyone deserves to be happy. Abusive shithead or not she's my favorite abusive shithead. Mindfang is the second favorite abusive shithead.

 

In high school when I was horrifically depressed, Cloud from Final Fantasy VII got me through some shit. Also the first canonical depiction of depression I'd seen aside from Shinji from Evangelion. So yeah, I will fight people who say Advent Children sucked. Also I realized I always sorta headcanoned him as asexual even before I had the words for it.

@boyacrossthestreet fellow TP fan!! Daja is my girl, though she has more self-restraint than I do so it might be an admiration/aspiration thing more than anything. Also Kel from Protector of the Small. They're both tall and BUILT and as a tall awkward girl growing up it made me feel good. (I may or may not be Actually a Girl but...yeah)

Estellise from Tales of Vesperia. Sheltered, naive, impulsive, but wants to do the right thing, HUGE BOOK NERD and likes infodumping on people :D.

Most recently, Ludger from Tales of Xillia 2. I get that people argue that he doesn't have enough personality b/c silent protag, but I didn't find it hard to get a sense of the kind of person he's supposed to be. Same clothing aesthetic. Also I like the fact that he's really domestic. Tries really hard to do the right thing but fucks up a lot. (huh)

Throwing the third (?) mention of Kanaya out there. Fussing/fixing instincts, wanting to seem elegant and composed but really just a huge awkward nerd underneath...we should start a club.

 

If we start a club we can pool our fussing resources together and use them for great evil. By which I mean no one will be safe from our meddling.

No one.

 

on the surface i'm just another karkat person but deep down it's even worse, i'm vriska
the only reason i'm so karkat is i'm really attached to other people and my circle of friends, even if that circle of friends is full of shitty people who treat each other like shit. i'm very clannish and clingy and i want my friend-family together and getting along. umm also there's the whole mutant thing to be a stand-in for my feelings about being trans without actually acknowledging it and making me feel gross lmao. he's so me i can't enjoy the character because i feel like i'm self inserting lmao UHHHH

BUT i'm also Vriska because i don't know how to make people like me by being nice. I just try to be really important so my value to the group is cemented. also i can be really mean and terrible and shit but that applies to both of these little shits

Lavi from D.Gray-man is another #me because he's not really part of anything, just watching and taking in everything. he has no identity, name or past, he can't be close to anyone but he enjoys the experience to the fullest he can anyway. he notices & experiences everything because it's so important to him (trans feels & feels about friends again lmao) this character is pretty much the only thing i care about in the series hahahshlfk

i have pretty bad hyper-empathy maybe that's why i like sensitive/observant characters

 

I'm not sure how much of it is from canon and how much from fanon (especially since i went on a massive fic binge at one point) but I do see a fair bit of myself in Karkat. He's a lot more open about his temper- a lot of people are really surprised when I go off, hah, because I usually keep mine suppressed because I'm terrified of doing harm with it- buuuut yeah. Patron troll ftw. I know everyone and their damn mother loves Karkat, though.
I also adore Signless in a way I am not very open about because it a) isn't really very well-defined in concepts I could put into words and b) too fucking personal.
I don't seem to have a lot of characters I see myself in though. I do find reading The Long Earth difficult because the main character is someone I would love to be like but have not a chance in hell of ever actually being like because I'm just not built that way. I get such fucking yearnings to be like him it's sort of painful. Mostly because he's super independent and never gets lonely, and being barely independent and frequently lonely are two giant problems in my current life.

 

DIRK MOTHERFUCKING STRIDER as I said in the other thread. I had trouble picking out why I identify before but now I think it comes down to a couple things:

1. Feeling completely isolated in childhood, then gaining actual friends in middle school years
2. AR is a really good representation of every bully I've ever faced. I'm still often pretty anxious about people who say they're my friends badmouthing me an generally not caring about me the moment I turn my back. I wish Dirk'd thrown his shades into the void I really do.
3. Long-standing depression/anxiety combo, plus suppression as a coping mechanism.
4. Realizing I felt so much like him helped me think about/accept being trans.

On the more positive side, I really loved the way Raven and Starfire were both feminine in very different ways. I never really latched onto either of them (I so wanted to be Raven because she was the outcast, it just never really clicked probably because Trans) but I still really love that contrast.

 

I'm very attached to Newt Geiszler from Pacific Rim. He's sort of... the guy I'd want to be in the ideal version of my life. We have a lot of the same flaws (obliviousness, obnoxiousness, self-centered attitude, bad impulse control and no ability to think things through), but he also has some strengths I really really wish I had (intelligence, self-confidence bordering on arrogance, drive and determination).
I get really really frustrated with fanon!Newt, who is a genki moeblob, because holy shit no did you even watch the movie, the guy is an asshole. Newt being an asshole is the whole reason I like him, so it feels weird to me that it's an aspect of his personality that fandom likes to ignore. The best you could say about him is that he comes off as just being really thoughtless rather than actively malevolent.
Also tattoos! I don't have any yet, but emphasis on the yet. High-quality tattoos of the size I want are... not really a practical option for a minimum-wage worker. Give me a few years.

 

@Valerie maybe write it up in a file, save the file, copy-and-paste it to kintsugi and then split it in two if that ends up being necessary.

 

I get the feelings of yearning HARD. For me, that's for Commander Shepard of the Mass Effect games (it's a little different since she's the PC of a role playing game). But she's determined, tenacious, selfless to a self-sacrificing degree, loyal, but wracked by depression, PTSD, social and political awkwardness, and she never fucking gets a break.

Continuing in Bioware (these games are my Special Interest, so I love sperging about them), Merrill from DA2 is basically me. She's a sweetheart, kind, but is absolute shit at reading people and situations. She's dedicated to her ideals and will use pretty much any means, even very dangerous ones to do what she thinks is right. She is defensive and crap at taking criticism, though to be fair, a lot of the criticism she gets are from people being horrible to her. She's absentminded (when she first moves to the city, she's given a ball of twine to leave behind her so she can find her way back home). She gives off the air of naivete and innocence, but it mostly stems from her not reading signals or innuendo. She's very interested in romance and sex. She also gets very angry when people treat her like a child, which is most people in that game.

God I love Merrill.

 

Rose Lalonde!

• tremendous mommy issues
• parentifying her own mother (esp. now that she meets roxy and literally mother and daughter are the same fucking age and maturity level)
• intellectual affect in order to project an air of emotional invulnerability
• knitting
• obsession with figuring out how dark and twisted stuff works (and breaking everything to see its insides) in order to feel better about it
• said obsession actually leading her farther from mental wellness
• frankly the only thing we don't have in common is the substance abuse problems

Fenris, from Dragon Age II

• escaped horrible abuse
• has been raped (and most people fail to pick up on the hints the text drops about it)
• slowly regaining agency in his life
• learning that trusting other people is what makes life actually improve ("meeting you was the most important thing that ever happened to me" from romanced Fenris is a line that absolutely kills me, not even from a shipping point of view, but simply from "meeting you was the turning point in my letting people in, and it led to my freedom and to better ways of solving my problems".)
• can come off as very rude and awkward, but is still getting to make friends to play cards with and ask for help from and provide help to
• loyal to the people he loves to the point of self-destruction, yet also maybe a bit possessive (is still learning the boundary thing)
• hates being coddled and pitied but also wants people to know the shit he's been through
• very high, often rigid moral standing which is gently, slowly starting to loosen up
• "fenris is heartened by your unexpected support" = OUCH RIGHT IN THE GUT

 

I used to think I was literally Karkat, because I have a tendency to be loud, I am casual very VERY fouldmouthed usually and I have a tendency to take on all the work then bitch about it and then refuse help.
TBH I am not so much canon!karkat as weird 3 years ago fanon!karkat, or used to be, idk. I usually get weirdly protective of characters I feel have been wronged *COUGHS* LAPIS LAZULI IS MY BEAUTIFUL ROCK WIFE AND DESERVED NONE OF THIS
otherwise i just realized I have no idea what magnitude of 'over-identify' we are talking about because I have trouble identifying the value of normalcy i should compare to.

 

That´s why (over) is in brackets, cause not all identifying is over. Also, because Codey overthinks things and wants to cover all of the bases. All of them.

 

Lots of fellow Roses in here. Sup, guys. Rose is like a conglomerate of my early teenage interests and style, and also has my name which always really fucking weirded me out. I'm not super invested but it's always been. A thing.

Yeah, I don't know why people say that Ludger doesn't have a personality because... He pretty clearly does? Especially once you unlock his voiced lines to get his delivery on the Choice Options.

I FEEL THIS SO HARD as someone who RPs Lapis. She falls so hard into my type which is apparently "characters who hide how much they're going to REALLY RUIN YOUR DAY until you piss them off, because they contain VENGEANCE for how the world has treated them."

Which brings this mine cart to a firmly squealing stop in front of Alma Karma, who is my Persona, fight me. Small angry child with the Genders and Only One Friend who goes Berserker Rage when you fuck with his One Friend, yes, that's me.

(Also, Asch the Bloody. Stupid angry prince of my heart.)

Other RPers, in the name of anecdata: Do you RP the characters you have Strong Identification with?