Post by ALEX on Jan 13, 2011 0:26:46 GMT -5
PLAYING AN ABUSED PERSON
This is a touchy subject, especially for those people out there who have been through some sort of abuse be it by a friend, a family member, random violence, or someone who was supposed to care about you. As someone very close to this topic, I really, really hate seeing it done poorly. People WILL disagree—possibly one hundred percent disagree— with what I say on here, maybe because they had a different experience than I did or maybe because they flat out think I am off my rocker, but that’s okay. Some people need more input on this, depending on the take that they want on their character. Please, no one be offended by what I’m saying, and please don’t tell me I have no idea what I’m talking about. This has happened before, and the end result was pretty awful for everyone who got involved. Here are some of my simple tips to playing someone who won’t annoy people who have been abused:
For one, Mary-Sues are found often in an abused person. She/He is the victim. Everything in their life is terrible. Their mother and/or father died in a terrible accident, and their guardian beats them to a bloody pulp all the time, rapes them, and then all their friends leave them because they think that getting raped is disgusting. Then they become cutters and have to leave their football team or their dance studio or whatever. This is one of the single most annoying things in the world to me and probably to a lot of other people to. Being a victim can be fun, yes, but to that extent, it’s absolutely ridiculous. You are a victim of abuse, maybe, but that does not make everyone a cutter and make them lose their friends. Some people do have the cards dealt badly to them, believe me, I know, but still, that doesn’t mean their life has no light. Give them a puppy that makes them happy that won’t get hit by a car. Give them a job that gets them lots of money that allows them to buy themselves fun clothes. Do something to make sure they aren’t a walking zombie of distress.
Do not rehash the same conversation over and over with every different character. Not only is that making your character the blatant victim all over again, but conversations will vary when dealing with this topic. (On that note, not many abused people are so willing to talk about it. It will take a long time to prod someone out of there, even when they are caught red-handed. I won’t be the first person in the world to deny something like this.) Telling your emotional best girl friend will not be the same conversation when you’re telling your… boyfriend per say. Your boyfriend might be the overprotective guy, so you’ll leave out as much as you possibly can without making him too angry, but with your best friend since you were in diapers, you would let loose, start sobbing, and tell them flat out what was happening. (Not every situation is like this. It varies for each person going through the experience. For me, my cousin was the hardest to tell, and my best friend was the one sobbing with me, hugging me, and he was a guy, so don’t think that guys are all going to be stony and want to beat everyone up. Again, it all depends on the characters.)
This character can be emotionally vulnerable and explode. At the same time, the person could be hardened by it and hardly feel emotion. Inwardly, this person is probably waiting to start screaming, but on the surface, they’d never let that show. They might do this while they’re alone, or they might just crack in front of the entire school. It depends on circumstance and character; it always does. While most people don’t want their characters to be the bad guys, that saying that the abused become abusers is true for some of the part. Not saying that your character has to be a bad guy or an abuser, I’m just saying that it’s very unlikely that they are never going to lash out verbally or even physically at someone. It’s just unrealistic. Now, again, not everyone is like this. Someone might be way too meek and timid because of their experience to even speak anymore. At the same time, I’ve seen people claim their character was so scarred they wouldn’t look anyone in the eyes and talk to them, and they were mouthing off to their abuser in every situation including the person. I don’t care what your character is like. If they’re supposed to be that timid, they are not mouthing off to the person who rendered them that way.
ON THE ABUSERS
Please don’t have your abuser be a heartless, cruel, sadistic son of a bitch who ties your character to tables and kicks the shit out of them. Never in any instance that I have heard about (and I work with a corporation that works with victims of abuse, so I’ve heard of a lot of horrific stories) was that the case. Don’t have the man or woman be an abuser because you want the drama for your character. There is always a reason behind why someone is an abuser. They were abused when they were younger, so it’s all they know how to do to deal with a situation they don’t think they can control. They’re quite literally mentally unstable, and they refuse to get any help, so they keep themselves in the family or the relationship situation. They’re hurting and scared and their first idea is to lash out and strike someone*. Maybe they’re alcoholics who can’t see the line between hurting someone and just drunkenly lashing out. Or drug addicts who are completely unstable. I don’t really care the reason. But abusers aren’t abusers because they can be. There’s a reason behind it all. Maybe it’s a pathetic reason, I don’t know, but it’s still a reason. More often than not, they care deeply about the person or people they’re hurting. They love them, and they don’t want to be the way that they are, but they can’t stop. This all depends on circumstance, of course, and I’m not telling you about every single situation in the world, but again, not every abuser hates the people they’re abusing. You don’t start a family to beat them up. You don’t find a girlfriend to beat them up either.
On this note, men and women both can be abusers. I don’t care if you think it’s going to hurt more if your dad punches you than your mom. Women can be just as unstable as men. People think it’s more horrific when a man hurts a woman, but that’s not right at all, and I actually find it sort of upsetting that people think that way. Yes, women sometimes have a harder time defending themselves, but tell that to the ten year old boy whose mother is hitting him because he dropped his food on the floor, and she went nuts. Abuse is abuse by man or woman. Belittling it is horrible, in my eyes, at least. But take all that with a grain of salt, I suppose. People think I’m crazy when I say it, but I think it’s all the same thing. Just because a punch leaves a bigger bruise doesn’t mean that the other punch hurt any less. Abuse is more emotional and mental than people like to believe.
On one last note, abuse is not as… glamorous as people make it out to be. Glamorous may not be the right word, but what I’m trying to say is that every time an abuser gets mad, there isn’t a whole kicking, punching, slamming into walls soap opera episode that everyone can ohh and ahh at and cry a bit. Sometimes, when an abuser gets mad, they yell. They just yell and yell to get rid of all that anger. Sometimes, you’d get hit, yeah, once or twice maybe. On occasion, though rarely— again, depending on character and circumstance— there will be a blown out beating from one of those corny savior love movies, but people like to make it into a huge drama plot when in actuality, it’s much more dramatic because of the raw emotion behind it, not the bruises that show up on someone’s skins.
Now, for a disclaimer, I know this is really touchy, and I apologize if I offended someone, but I figured if people were allowed to speak out about British stereotypes or something of the like, I could speak out too. On that note ABSOLUTELY ALL OF THIS is going to be different from other people’s perspective. Everyone takes things like this in a different way. I was just saying what I have learned from not only personal experience but people I have met and have gone through something similar. If you disagree with anything I said, that’s totally fine. I won’t be offended in the slightest. Tell the other people what you think. Some players need some guidance on this. What I’m really trying to say through this whole thread is that I think that if you’re going to take on a topic as delicate and sensitive as abuse, I think you should try to set it up so that it’s as realistic and not-offensive as possible. I for one am slightly offended when an abused characters comes on, is a total drama queen fuck-up who cuts herself and drinks and does drugs and parties all the time. Some people are like that, but if you want to play a different kind of character, maybe this was helpful. I hope so.
This is a touchy subject, especially for those people out there who have been through some sort of abuse be it by a friend, a family member, random violence, or someone who was supposed to care about you. As someone very close to this topic, I really, really hate seeing it done poorly. People WILL disagree—possibly one hundred percent disagree— with what I say on here, maybe because they had a different experience than I did or maybe because they flat out think I am off my rocker, but that’s okay. Some people need more input on this, depending on the take that they want on their character. Please, no one be offended by what I’m saying, and please don’t tell me I have no idea what I’m talking about. This has happened before, and the end result was pretty awful for everyone who got involved. Here are some of my simple tips to playing someone who won’t annoy people who have been abused:
For one, Mary-Sues are found often in an abused person. She/He is the victim. Everything in their life is terrible. Their mother and/or father died in a terrible accident, and their guardian beats them to a bloody pulp all the time, rapes them, and then all their friends leave them because they think that getting raped is disgusting. Then they become cutters and have to leave their football team or their dance studio or whatever. This is one of the single most annoying things in the world to me and probably to a lot of other people to. Being a victim can be fun, yes, but to that extent, it’s absolutely ridiculous. You are a victim of abuse, maybe, but that does not make everyone a cutter and make them lose their friends. Some people do have the cards dealt badly to them, believe me, I know, but still, that doesn’t mean their life has no light. Give them a puppy that makes them happy that won’t get hit by a car. Give them a job that gets them lots of money that allows them to buy themselves fun clothes. Do something to make sure they aren’t a walking zombie of distress.
Do not rehash the same conversation over and over with every different character. Not only is that making your character the blatant victim all over again, but conversations will vary when dealing with this topic. (On that note, not many abused people are so willing to talk about it. It will take a long time to prod someone out of there, even when they are caught red-handed. I won’t be the first person in the world to deny something like this.) Telling your emotional best girl friend will not be the same conversation when you’re telling your… boyfriend per say. Your boyfriend might be the overprotective guy, so you’ll leave out as much as you possibly can without making him too angry, but with your best friend since you were in diapers, you would let loose, start sobbing, and tell them flat out what was happening. (Not every situation is like this. It varies for each person going through the experience. For me, my cousin was the hardest to tell, and my best friend was the one sobbing with me, hugging me, and he was a guy, so don’t think that guys are all going to be stony and want to beat everyone up. Again, it all depends on the characters.)
This character can be emotionally vulnerable and explode. At the same time, the person could be hardened by it and hardly feel emotion. Inwardly, this person is probably waiting to start screaming, but on the surface, they’d never let that show. They might do this while they’re alone, or they might just crack in front of the entire school. It depends on circumstance and character; it always does. While most people don’t want their characters to be the bad guys, that saying that the abused become abusers is true for some of the part. Not saying that your character has to be a bad guy or an abuser, I’m just saying that it’s very unlikely that they are never going to lash out verbally or even physically at someone. It’s just unrealistic. Now, again, not everyone is like this. Someone might be way too meek and timid because of their experience to even speak anymore. At the same time, I’ve seen people claim their character was so scarred they wouldn’t look anyone in the eyes and talk to them, and they were mouthing off to their abuser in every situation including the person. I don’t care what your character is like. If they’re supposed to be that timid, they are not mouthing off to the person who rendered them that way.
ON THE ABUSERS
Please don’t have your abuser be a heartless, cruel, sadistic son of a bitch who ties your character to tables and kicks the shit out of them. Never in any instance that I have heard about (and I work with a corporation that works with victims of abuse, so I’ve heard of a lot of horrific stories) was that the case. Don’t have the man or woman be an abuser because you want the drama for your character. There is always a reason behind why someone is an abuser. They were abused when they were younger, so it’s all they know how to do to deal with a situation they don’t think they can control. They’re quite literally mentally unstable, and they refuse to get any help, so they keep themselves in the family or the relationship situation. They’re hurting and scared and their first idea is to lash out and strike someone*. Maybe they’re alcoholics who can’t see the line between hurting someone and just drunkenly lashing out. Or drug addicts who are completely unstable. I don’t really care the reason. But abusers aren’t abusers because they can be. There’s a reason behind it all. Maybe it’s a pathetic reason, I don’t know, but it’s still a reason. More often than not, they care deeply about the person or people they’re hurting. They love them, and they don’t want to be the way that they are, but they can’t stop. This all depends on circumstance, of course, and I’m not telling you about every single situation in the world, but again, not every abuser hates the people they’re abusing. You don’t start a family to beat them up. You don’t find a girlfriend to beat them up either.
On this note, men and women both can be abusers. I don’t care if you think it’s going to hurt more if your dad punches you than your mom. Women can be just as unstable as men. People think it’s more horrific when a man hurts a woman, but that’s not right at all, and I actually find it sort of upsetting that people think that way. Yes, women sometimes have a harder time defending themselves, but tell that to the ten year old boy whose mother is hitting him because he dropped his food on the floor, and she went nuts. Abuse is abuse by man or woman. Belittling it is horrible, in my eyes, at least. But take all that with a grain of salt, I suppose. People think I’m crazy when I say it, but I think it’s all the same thing. Just because a punch leaves a bigger bruise doesn’t mean that the other punch hurt any less. Abuse is more emotional and mental than people like to believe.
On one last note, abuse is not as… glamorous as people make it out to be. Glamorous may not be the right word, but what I’m trying to say is that every time an abuser gets mad, there isn’t a whole kicking, punching, slamming into walls soap opera episode that everyone can ohh and ahh at and cry a bit. Sometimes, when an abuser gets mad, they yell. They just yell and yell to get rid of all that anger. Sometimes, you’d get hit, yeah, once or twice maybe. On occasion, though rarely— again, depending on character and circumstance— there will be a blown out beating from one of those corny savior love movies, but people like to make it into a huge drama plot when in actuality, it’s much more dramatic because of the raw emotion behind it, not the bruises that show up on someone’s skins.
Now, for a disclaimer, I know this is really touchy, and I apologize if I offended someone, but I figured if people were allowed to speak out about British stereotypes or something of the like, I could speak out too. On that note ABSOLUTELY ALL OF THIS is going to be different from other people’s perspective. Everyone takes things like this in a different way. I was just saying what I have learned from not only personal experience but people I have met and have gone through something similar. If you disagree with anything I said, that’s totally fine. I won’t be offended in the slightest. Tell the other people what you think. Some players need some guidance on this. What I’m really trying to say through this whole thread is that I think that if you’re going to take on a topic as delicate and sensitive as abuse, I think you should try to set it up so that it’s as realistic and not-offensive as possible. I for one am slightly offended when an abused characters comes on, is a total drama queen fuck-up who cuts herself and drinks and does drugs and parties all the time. Some people are like that, but if you want to play a different kind of character, maybe this was helpful. I hope so.
