Ok, so Jane's post got me thinking.
Do you like ranking 'sonas? Do you tend to gravitate towards a certain level of rank...ie...no rank, low rank, mid rank, high rank?
I personally tend to gravitate towards midish ranking personas, like Wingthirds, Weyrhealers, etc.
I would say 'no rank'. I like writing for ordinary characters and depicting their everyday lives, and having rank tends to ruin their ordinariness.
I think for me I just write were a persona is needed. If a persona is needed to fill a rank or to fill a hole in a SL I'm happy to fill it. I think you can have equally interesting personas whether they are the Lord of the Hold or the drudge who cleans it 8)
I think the most important thing, whether its a ranker or not, is just finding the humanity in them. The flaws and the good points. I try to make each one a study of the human spirit in some way. I don't think I've made any persona who is truly evil or truly good, always brave or always a coward...
Quote from: "Eimi"... I think you can have equally interesting personas whether they are the Lord of the Hold or the drudge who cleans it ...
I agree that everybody can do their best with characters of any rank, but sometimes some roles just don't have enough
scope. Drudges might never leave the Hold, perhaps, and children of cotholders might not ever leave home. Even with my addiction to ordinariness I struggled to keep storylines going for three groups of isolated cotholders.
Quote from: "Eimi"... I don't think I've made any persona who is truly evil or truly good, always brave or always a coward...
Mine are mostly good-hearted or kindly. The furthest I've ever managed to push myself away from that is 'stern'. :D
I think last count something like 10 of my personas (or more) were Healers. I have 2 Master Healers (and gosh only knows what would happen to me if the Healer Hall reopened!)
I have NO IDEA why I love them so... but I can't stop making them. Apprentice, journeyman, master, Weyrhealer... I don't seem to care!
That's pretty much the only thing I love. :D
Though I actively don't love Headwomen. Not sure why... just so not my thing. As is probably obvious because the last one I had killed the Lord Holder and Steward. ;)
QuoteThough I actively don't love Headwomen. Not sure why... just so not my thing. As is probably obvious because the last one I had killed the Lord Holder and Steward.
And don't forget is now being slowly driven out of her mind by a vengeful Meijah XD
I only have rankers because bronzeriders are automatically level 4. And I only meant to have one, because D'ren was created to fulfill my 13-year-old fantasy. But while I was creating N'vanik, I just couldn't make him anything but a bronzerider. I mean, c'mon! ;)
Maybe I'll have an actual ranker at some point, but it depends on the characters. If I come up with a character that would make a good/interesting Wingsecond, Steward, Weyrlingmaster or whatever, then maybe I'll go for it.
(although I do have a few secret desires. Shhhh. ;))
Quote from: "Bree"I think last count something like 10 of my personas (or more) were Healers. I have 2 Master Healers (and gosh only knows what would happen to me if the Healer Hall reopened!)
I have NO IDEA why I love them so... but I can't stop making them. Apprentice, journeyman, master, Weyrhealer... I don't seem to care!
That's pretty much the only thing I love. :D
I love smiths - but I've never loved them
that much! And (as an excuse) smiths, especially those journeywomen smiths, are a little auto-biographical since I was an aircraft mechanic in my younger days.
Quote from: "Bree"Though I actively don't love Headwomen. Not sure why... just so not my thing. As is probably obvious because the last one I had killed the Lord Holder and Steward. ;)
And I'm a serial headwoman creator.
Where you lead an Evil Army, Bree, I champion ordinariness and order. :lol:
Quote from: "Becki"I only have rankers because bronzeriders are automatically level 4. ...
Yeah, that's it! (I was puzzling over it before.) There is IC rank and Triad rank. Wingleader is both, bronzerider is just Triad rank.
And I'm a serial headwoman creator.
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Jane! Can I lure you to create a Headwoman for Emerald Falls hold?! (the previous started having babies.)
I create personae to say something I need to express. It doesn't matter the rank involved. Just because of what they are non/low-rankers are exposed to, and living trhough things different from rankers.
It depends on what I need to say.
As far as dragonriders go, for me they end up as rank because of personality, confidence and smarts breeds rank in my mind, especially with a rider in his 30's or 40's. My Hallmaster was an accident, I made him a Hallsecond to get the Dolphin Hall livened up and when the Hallmaster left he got the job by default. :D
I do like the ordinaries too... but I have the same problem as you Jane, I have trouble finding interesting things for them to do sometime, and I have this obsessive need to keep all of my persone actively posting. :lol:
Quote from: "Cali"and I have this obsessive need to keep all of my persone actively posting. :lol:
Me too! And posting and posting and posting! I'm not happy unless I have a minimum of 10 coposts going for each 'sona!
I'm actually happier with my characters that have less rank rather than more. J'nus is Wingleader because of a plot point (that needs to be resolved) and I created Cyrek for a friend that has since left the club. And then there's Tsaera... *g* I normally wouldn't have applied for a Weyrwoman position, and I can't say that I'm overly fond of adoptables (I'm a snob, what can I say?) but c'mon - a 67 year old ballbusting Weyrwoman/Master Crafter in a sea of 20-something vapid goldriders? And that's not mentioning that she's built like a brick shithouse. I couldn't resist. *G*
Quote from: "Yvonne"... but c'mon - a 67 year old ballbusting Weyrwoman/Master Crafter in a sea of 20-something vapid goldriders? And that's not mentioning that she's built like a brick shithouse. I couldn't resist. *G*
Yeah, I can see why she was irresistable! :lol:
Quote from: "Yvonne"in a sea of 20-something vapid goldriders?
Hey! I like to think Lenala takes vapid to an artform. ;) It's hard work to make her that much of a pushover! *sob*
I tend to create kind, beautiful people, but I'm slowly making their lives worse, making them more human, more real. It's taking time but I think it's getting better.
Somehow I end up getting sucked into taking ranking positions OOC'ly.
The downfall is that sometimes the characters I create for said positions just don't click once I start writing for them. If it's a non-ranking character and something just feels off about them, no biggie, you can just have them fade quietly away. Whereas once a ranker has been put into play, its hard to do that.
Whether I prefer my rankers or my 'normal' folks all depends on what I have going on with them. When I was at Triad previously, my bronzerider ended up as Weyrleader and was my favorite person to post with. My least favorite was a brownrider named F'rdayn. I made him as a weyrmate for a dragonless character of mine, and he was just... A stick in the mud. Couldn't get him involved in anything to save my life.
I can't believe I never replied to this. That's odd...
Anyways, I personally don't have an affinity for ranking persona's but they seem to come to me. Kouna was a complete surprise but she's fast becoming my favorite character. I want a Headwomanly character and a Goldrider/HAD just because that's always been one of my dreams for role playing on Pern, not because I want the power, and I definitely don't want a L1! One L2 is hard enough! I guess I LIKE rankers, but I'm definitely not against other characters.
Hmm. I'm more interested in who my characters are as characters, not what their rank is. That's not to say that I don't like rankers, just that the nature of a character's personality is far more appealing to me than their rank. However, sometimes a character will have an affinity for a particular rank- L'pin's personality lends him to being in a position of teaching authority, for example. And sometimes characters have a rank, but no personal ability to perform that rank, like Lord Ishek. Sometimes that's the most fun conflict to play. here on Earth, it isn't that hard to change your job, if you're willing to work at it (generally, I mean!) On Pern, it's a lot harder to break out of constraints imposed on you by society. Witness the repression of females in Hold and Hall, for example.
I guess what I mean is, I don't like ranking characters because they "ooh shiny I have a rank and power". I like them because they offer a unique ability that non-rankers don't have; the ability to show how their rank goes along with or contrasts with their personality, and how that leads them.
Quote from: "Avril"I guess what I mean is, I don't like ranking characters because they "ooh shiny I have a rank and power". I like them because they offer a unique ability that non-rankers don't have; the ability to show how their rank goes along with or contrasts with their personality, and how that leads them.
Thats why I like Rankers. Most of the time I build my characters around their rank, that's what happened with Kouna. Most of the time my persona's scream at me to fill a certain position. Other times I have a set type of person I want and the person builds around that preset idea. Most of the time though they just pop into my head, almost fully formed, ready to go, with what their rank is, their personality and background and looks almost completely finished in my head from the start. It's weird o.O
Like Avril, I create characters for their characters. If I'm struck with inspiration and get an idea for a persona, I write it down, and from there just add layers to them. If those layers include them being of rank to help progress their storyline, then that's the direction I take them.
I enjoy rankers. I mean, they're fun cause they've always got a job or hook or responsibility of some sort that can be worked in a copost so there's never a "What can I do with them now?" feeling.
And I've probably not explained that very well. lol
Quote from: "Amanda"I enjoy rankers. I mean, they're fun cause they've always got a job or hook or responsibility of some sort that can be worked in a copost so there's never a "What can I do with them now?" feeling.
Never any shortage of coposters for them either.
How did I miss this thread???
Given all of the Pern clubs I've been in, it should be no surprise that I've written for nearly every possible rank there is in fandom. Some I've aspired to, but most I've been recruited into. Perhaps because I've done so much, rank doesn't matter to me one way or the other anymore. It's the characters and their storylines that matter to me, and if the character happens to be or needs to be a ranker... *shrug* ...so be it.
Looking at my collection of old sheets, I do tend to write more for green and blue -riders than any other, and I definitely write for more males than females. And then there are my weyrbrats... *evil grin*
Quote from: "AJ Kraier"and I definitely write for more males than females. And then there are my weyrbrats... *evil grin*
I write for way more females than I do males. I guess I just can't get women off my mind 8)