User:Thijshijsijsjss/Human Parser/About Character Creation

About Character Creation, 1

QUESTION > Do YOU hold eye contact for a second or 2?

THIJS has had many speculative diagnoses thrown their way. At times, it can be very useful to see them through such lens. However, it can also be confusing. When THIJS doesn’t know how to feel, how to act or who to be, they might think: ‘ah, but a person with this diagnosis will surely feel this, do that, and be such’. So THIJS feels this, THIJS does that, and THIJS becomes their diagnosis.

QUESTION > From 1 to 10, how content are YOU now? Often questionnaires are used in such processes, and they have a similar effect. 

Often these questionnaires are (supposedly) designed to capture nuance in the sum of their questions, not in the individual ones. That means that any one question tends to be absurd when considered in isolation. (These questionnaires also tend to be quite perverse, often being presumptuous in nature and clinically avoidant of terms ‘the patient would surely misunderstand’.)

When faced with a question, YOU are prompted to introspect. But by the question’s absurdity, YOU do not always know the answer. The more YOU think about it, the more it might seem like there’s no end to answering this question, nor a beginning. YOUR identity begins to fade in front of you.

QUESTION > Do YOU do things YOU care about deeply?

About Character Creation, 2

QUESTION > What is YOUR name?

Many video games start with character creation: defining the character the player will embody. This comes in many forms: specifying the physical attributes of a human-like entity, giving a name to that entity, or assigning them character traits and flaws. Also non-human and even inanimate entities can serve as the player's embodiment, like a truck in some road trip simulator. In play, we still refer to that diegetic entity as 'I'.

We assign a value to this representation of ourselves in the game world. This value becomes particularly apparent through the friction that arises when one cannot represent themselves. For example by misrepresentation of gender or race, or features, or when a player is unable to control the in-game 'I' like they want to. In any such case (and there are many more) a rift starts to form: we are made aware of the dissonance between ourselves and the entity we want to consider as 'I'. Reversely, the 'dissonant I' can hold power, exactly because they provide an opportunity to explore a person we cannot be, we are not allowed to be, or a person we might be unsure about being. (Role playing games, for example, provide an amazing opportunity for embodied exploration of one's gender and sexuality.)

That we call this diegetic entity 'I' is highly peculiar, for our 'character' need not be a representation of our non-game self (for better or for worse). Character creation happens through absurd questions. Absurd, in their disconnect to the non-game world, their disobedience to normal world logic. That 'what is your name?' is a question worth consideration, suggests we lend these representations power outside of the scope of our current being. Yet we imagine ourselves as these representations. We want to imagine ourselves as these representations. We feel what they are feeling, do what they are doing, and become who they are. Character creation is a process of willfully prophetic diagnostic quetionnaires.