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I am have brown hair and (blue)green eyes. I write stories about a character who brown hair and (mossy)green eyes. Every now and then, I've wondered if these shared traits might be an element of self-insertion (at least I never did, and never will, give her my white streak :) )
Upon thinking about it, I realized the following:
The character I write about was one I played in a game, with brown hair and, in my mind, green eyes. My main Everquest character had brown hair and excessively green eyes. My Anarchy Online characters had brown hair, and most of them had green eyes. It's what I almost always create in games when given a choice; all other visual permutations are pretty much 'side-characters' I make after I make the one I intend to play first and foremost.
When I was a kid and got my first barbie type doll, it was a Sindy doll with black hair, blue eyes and a huge head. I liked her, and her serious facial expression, but that head! I got a ken doll some time later to keep her company, and she looked positively hydrocephalic by comparison... so I got a barbie, with blue eyes and platinum hair. I never really took to that Barbie, but it was the best I could do; all the other dolls were as platinum-haired as she was.
A year later, when I was in Australia and came across a Barbie with honey-colored hair, I bought that and instantly relegated the old one to the role of sister/friend/nemesis of the new main doll.
I always wanted a barbie with actual brown hair, but I never saw one until I was an adult. Nonetheless, I was thrilled. Finally, they existed!
I've always preferred brown-haired heroines; I identify better with them, just like I prefer it when I can play a female character in a game, as I don't identify easily with male characters (Ultima 7 gave me a female character, but I always wished her hair could have been dark instead of blonde). I've preferred green eyes for as long as I can remember, and always liked it better when my eyes looked greener than when they looked bluer (possibly because I saw the blue as 'ordinary' while the green was 'not ordinary).
And so, I make brown-haired, green-eyed protagonists in my games, and in my game-inspired writing.
(Second preferred hair colour for my characters is red. I am certain it is a good thing I didn't give that kind of hair to my green eyed protagonist)
(And this all sounded better in my head before I tried to write it down :) )
Upon thinking about it, I realized the following:
The character I write about was one I played in a game, with brown hair and, in my mind, green eyes. My main Everquest character had brown hair and excessively green eyes. My Anarchy Online characters had brown hair, and most of them had green eyes. It's what I almost always create in games when given a choice; all other visual permutations are pretty much 'side-characters' I make after I make the one I intend to play first and foremost.
When I was a kid and got my first barbie type doll, it was a Sindy doll with black hair, blue eyes and a huge head. I liked her, and her serious facial expression, but that head! I got a ken doll some time later to keep her company, and she looked positively hydrocephalic by comparison... so I got a barbie, with blue eyes and platinum hair. I never really took to that Barbie, but it was the best I could do; all the other dolls were as platinum-haired as she was.
A year later, when I was in Australia and came across a Barbie with honey-colored hair, I bought that and instantly relegated the old one to the role of sister/friend/nemesis of the new main doll.
I always wanted a barbie with actual brown hair, but I never saw one until I was an adult. Nonetheless, I was thrilled. Finally, they existed!
I've always preferred brown-haired heroines; I identify better with them, just like I prefer it when I can play a female character in a game, as I don't identify easily with male characters (Ultima 7 gave me a female character, but I always wished her hair could have been dark instead of blonde). I've preferred green eyes for as long as I can remember, and always liked it better when my eyes looked greener than when they looked bluer (possibly because I saw the blue as 'ordinary' while the green was 'not ordinary).
And so, I make brown-haired, green-eyed protagonists in my games, and in my game-inspired writing.
(Second preferred hair colour for my characters is red. I am certain it is a good thing I didn't give that kind of hair to my green eyed protagonist)
(And this all sounded better in my head before I tried to write it down :) )
no subject
I try to keep myself out of my writing, and the avatars I make are almost always bizarre pink-haired, 6-foot-tall men, but...the NaNoWriMo novel I'm working on now brushed dangerously close to Mary Sue territory last night. HA!
I bought "Hispanic Barbie" just to have one that looked like me back in the '70s. Seriously, that was the name they gave her. So...overcorrect. But I had a Sindy too, the great thing about her was that all her clothes fit my Princess Leia doll. Oh yeah, Leia...um...we went everywhere together. *cough* I was such a girl. *cough*
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I tend to visualise female characters as fairly tall, whatever their hair colour, and I've inflicted my extreme early-rising sleep pattern on one character. I don't think that makes him a self-insert, even an idealised one.
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