Video Game Characters, My Passion

[Idahocalypse]

After being thoroughly inspired after reading a thread where another user spoke candidly about her own special interest, I decided to make a post about mine.

Ever since May of 2013, my special interest has been specific video game characters. Currently my favorite video game characters are (in no particular order): Guzma from Pokemon Sun & Moon, Mettaton EX from Undertale, Poison from Final Fight, Alice Angel from Bendy & The Ink Machine, and Charlie from Don't Starve Together. (Even though most of the characters are from more recent games, my passion for game characters began with a different set of characters back in 2013.) You might think I'm a gamer, but actually I'm quite bad at video games. In truth, I'm drawn towards video game characters because of their unique designs and personalities. Even if a character isn't fully developed personality-wise, I can still get a feel for who they are by the way that they're drawn. Sometimes the official art can be lacking or not in my preferred style, but in those times where official art fails, fan art saves the day. There's always something that draws me towards a particular character, something otherworldly and indescribable. It feels almost like I've fallen in love with them.

You may be thinking, "If you don't play video games then how do you indulge your interest?" Well, besides looking at amazing artwork, my preferred way of indulging is turning up my music and letting my imagination run wild. Oftentimes I will listen to songs that I can picture my favorite characters listening, singing or dancing to, and before I know it, I'm entranced by mental imagery of the characters acting out the song. When I'm in this mode of "using my imagination", as I call it, reality completely ceases to exist. (And given current world affairs, that might not be such a bad thing...)

However, even though I have been obsessing over video game characters for the past 4 years, I have been lying to both myself and to others about my passion. Socially I "wear a mask" which means that I pretend to like things that I really don't care much about in order to conceal my true passions. I do this because I am afraid of being negatively judged and emotionally hurt. The "masks" I wear are special interests that I did have at some point in the past but I no longer care about them as much in the present. I just fall back on my already-established well of knowledge on those subjects so that I have something "safe" to talk about during social situations. It would make me feel too vulnerable to talk openly about the fact that my true passion in life is having elaborate daydreams involving specific video game characters, especially given the fact that I don't actually play video games.

I don't really know how to conclude this post, I have been working on it for two solid hours and I'm very tired (it's my bedtime). I'll be interested to see what kind of responses I get later.

 

[Momo]

Well, I'm quite into video games but I can understand the attraction to certain characters. I used to collect all the tomb raider comics, games and so on (still kinda do).

 

[Jet Weiss]

I am into video games, though I am not good at them either. I play them at my own pace.
I have always had a big crush on Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series

 

[Tyrantus1212]

I play video games, in most cases just one at a time. I've had crushes on some female NPC's in Skyrim; the characters are so life-like in that game! Well, their looks are - not their personalities. I too wear a mask at work and with friends; I'm weird enough as is and I don't want them to think that I'm crazy. Most of them know about my fascination with construction sites, though; I make it come off as not "weird", but instead "cool and unusual".

 

[Misery]

Oh yeah, I can understand this one.

The really huge obsession for me involved Bridget, a character from a game series called Guilty Gear. A fighting game. An unusual character, looks female and has a female name, but is actually male. Strange outfit, but I like it anyway.

How obsessive did I get? Well there's two aspects to it. Firstly, I cosplay as him. Alot. I'm kinda feminine in appearance myself, so it's actually worked out nicely. But I can say that utter bloody obsession isnt the usual reason why someone cosplays as any given character. The second aspect involves the game itself. I got good at it. *Really* good. A seriously abnormal level of skill. But it wasnt practice that did it. The general obsession made for a burning desire to make sure that I NEVER SEE THIS CHARACTER LOSE. This is a competitive multiplayer game, which makes that difficult. But I made it work anyway. The stronger my opponent was, the more totally berserk I'd get and the faster I'd be. It got to the point where I'd have trouble finding people to play it with, because if they so much as saw me playing it, they would refuse to have a match due to them assuming that they would lose. This overall had such an impact that my overall reaction and mental processing speed was dramatically increased.... purely because of this fictional character.

The other big one is pretty recent. It is Chara, from Undertale. Super popular game right now, among those that play PC games. This one, to some, might seem like a bit of an odd choice to me. As the second pic suggests, the character is... not exactly the most pleasant person, much of the time. A bit two-sided as well, as the first pic suggests. But aside from liking the look of the character, I also latched onto Chara because, if I'm being completely honest, my personality is extremely similar to theirs. A very close match. The difference being, I dont actually stab anyone (even if some peope kinda make me want to, by being total jerkwads). But the abrupt switch from my normal, passive state, to a very manipulative and angry one, is definitely there, among other aspects. There's also just something fun about this one. And the fact that Chara, for whatever reason, has no officially defined gender... goes along with my own personal gender issues (so does Bridget). I do a cosplay of this one too, which seems to suit me well. Also has the advantage of being the easiest cosplay I've ever done. Also lets me carry around an enormous prop knife (having something to carry when walking around serves as a sort of stim, both when cosplaying and in daily life too) Lastly, the character is very obviously a total misantrope, which definitely is an aspect I share.

Quick pics, because why not:

On a side note, the character whose face is reflected in the knife blade there is Sans. He's pretty interesting too. A friendly skeleton, everyone just loves him. I've seen LOTS of people get really obsessive over him. That game has a really interesting cast.

There's been others I get obsessive over, but not near the level of Bridget and Chara.

As a rule, I do my best to not let this show too much in daily life. People tend to think I'm strange enough as it is. My friends all fully know about it though. So I try to hide it in normal situations, which frankly I hate doing. At a convention though, I can do as I like. So that helps alot, and means that I try to go to as many of them as I can. Really the best form of self-expression I can do... even if it's kinda weird.

Really hard to find anyone that really understands any of it though.


Sorry, long post, but.... there ya go.

 

[Idahocalypse]

Oh yeah, I can understand this one.

The really huge obsession for me involved Bridget, a character from a game series called Guilty Gear. A fighting game. An unusual character, looks female and has a female name, but is actually male. Strange outfit, but I like it anyway.

How obsessive did I get? Well there's two aspects to it. Firstly, I cosplay as him. Alot. I'm kinda feminine in appearance myself, so it's actually worked out nicely. But I can say that utter bloody obsession isnt the usual reason why someone cosplays as any given character. The second aspect involves the game itself. I got good at it. *Really* good. A seriously abnormal level of skill. But it wasnt practice that did it. The general obsession made for a burning desire to make sure that I NEVER SEE THIS CHARACTER LOSE. This is a competitive multiplayer game, which makes that difficult. But I made it work anyway. The stronger my opponent was, the more totally berserk I'd get and the faster I'd be. It got to the point where I'd have trouble finding people to play it with, because if they so much as saw me playing it, they would refuse to have a match due to them assuming that they would lose. This overall had such an impact that my overall reaction and mental processing speed was dramatically increased.... purely because of this fictional character.

The other big one is pretty recent. It is Chara, from Undertale. Super popular game right now, among those that play PC games. This one, to some, might seem like a bit of an odd choice to me. As the second pic suggests, the character is... not exactly the most pleasant person, much of the time. A bit two-sided as well, as the first pic suggests. But aside from liking the look of the character, I also latched onto Chara because, if I'm being completely honest, my personality is extremely similar to theirs. A very close match. The difference being, I dont actually stab anyone (even if some peope kinda make me want to, by being total jerkwads). But the abrupt switch from my normal, passive state, to a very manipulative and angry one, is definitely there, among other aspects. There's also just something fun about this one. And the fact that Chara, for whatever reason, has no officially defined gender... goes along with my own personal gender issues (so does Bridget). I do a cosplay of this one too, which seems to suit me well. Also has the advantage of being the easiest cosplay I've ever done. Also lets me carry around an enormous prop knife (having something to carry when walking around serves as a sort of stim, both when cosplaying and in daily life too) Lastly, the character is very obviously a total misantrope, which definitely is an aspect I share.

Quick pics, because why not:


View attachment 35979

View attachment 35981

On a side note, the character whose face is reflected in the knife blade there is Sans. He's pretty interesting too. A friendly skeleton, everyone just loves him. I've seen LOTS of people get really obsessive over him. That game has a really interesting cast.

There's been others I get obsessive over, but not near the level of Bridget and Chara.

As a rule, I do my best to not let this show too much in daily life. People tend to think I'm strange enough as it is. My friends all fully know about it though. So I try to hide it in normal situations, which frankly I hate doing. At a convention though, I can do as I like. So that helps alot, and means that I try to go to as many of them as I can. Really the best form of self-expression I can do... even if it's kinda weird.

Really hard to find anyone that really understands any of it though.


Sorry, long post, but.... there ya go.

Thank you for your response, it really made me feel a lot better. I'm familiar with Bridget and Undertale. One of the video game characters I obsess over sometimes is Mettaton EX from Undertale. He reminds me a lot of a friend I used to have in middle school, in both appearance and personality.

I tried to study Sans to try and figure out why so many people obsess over him, but I guess I really don't get it? Maybe it's because he and I are so similar (according to various Undertale personality quizzes anyway), and I have a tendency to dislike characters who resemble me too much. I can't stand Alphys either because she physically resembles me too much (apart from her being a dinosaur thing and all) and she has a passion for anime like I do.

At least I take comfort knowing that Undyne would probably find me attractive, since she's canonically in a relationship with Alphys. (Undyne is my second favorite Undertale character, Mettaton being in first.) Funny story, I used to have a lot of fun imagining Undyne as my swimming coach back when I used to go to the indoor swimming pool near where I live.

 

[Bolletje]

Where to start... lets just say that over 25 years of playing video games have left me with lots of weird crushes and fascinations

Most notably I had varying crushes on Viconia and Jaheira in Baldurs Gate 2, Alistair and Zevran in Dragon Age: Origins, Isabela and Fenris in Dragon Age: 2 . I must be missing a few here for sure. I thought Ben from Full Throttle was super rugged when I was a kid and he's still one of my favorite characters. I'm a huge fan of Guybrush Threepwood (up until Monkey Island 3) as well.

I'll probably come up with more later

 

[The Penguin]

Well, besides looking at amazing artwork, my preferred way of indulging is turning up my music and letting my imagination run wild.

Have you ever tried listening to music from games? I listen to music from many games all the time. You can find tons YouTube. It makes me think of various characters I met in different parts of the game when I heard the music for the first time.

"If you don't play video games then how do you indulge your interest?"

I don't find that important. What important you have a great passion for this.

Socially I "wear a mask" which means that I pretend to like things that I really don't care much about in order to conceal my true passions. I do this because I am afraid of being negatively judged and emotionally hurt. The "masks" I wear are special interests that I did have at some point in the past but I no longer care about them as much in the present.

I use to do this but learned this drained lots of my energy. I decided to just be me. I understand most people don't accept me being me. Into anime, collecting endless toys and other stuff but it the only thing makes me happy so it something I will never give up. This does not mean I go out when I meet person the first time I talk about I'm into anime and stuff. But if they catch me one day wearing related clothing, visit my home or they see my phone background, I'm not going to deny it. You want to know a cool thing happen to me today? I wore and NES t-shirt with the controller that shows on the front of my T-shirt. This woman trying to get my attention since I wear head phones and showed me her Zelda backpack.

 

[The Penguin]

Frisk was one of my top characters after when I played Undertale. How I learned about the game I was listening to music for Shovel Knight. After when it finished YouTube started playing music for Undertale. The music was so good I decided to learn about the game. The game at first remind me of EarthBound which was not a game I got into. However, the style of the game is different for Undertale and they have good music and a story line to my liking which got me into the game. I really like the role Frisk had and many the other characters in the game.

 

[DiverseWonderland]

After being thoroughly inspired after reading a thread where another user spoke candidly about her own special interest, I decided to make a post about mine.

Ever since May of 2013, my special interest has been specific video game characters. Currently my favorite video game characters are (in no particular order): Guzma from Pokemon Sun & Moon, Mettaton EX from Undertale, Poison from Final Fight, Alice Angel from Bendy & The Ink Machine, and Charlie from Don't Starve Together. (Even though most of the characters are from more recent games, my passion for game characters began with a different set of characters back in 2013.) You might think I'm a gamer, but actually I'm quite bad at video games. In truth, I'm drawn towards video game characters because of their unique designs and personalities. Even if a character isn't fully developed personality-wise, I can still get a feel for who they are by the way that they're drawn. Sometimes the official art can be lacking or not in my preferred style, but in those times where official art fails, fan art saves the day. There's always something that draws me towards a particular character, something otherworldly and indescribable. It feels almost like I've fallen in love with them.

You may be thinking, "If you don't play video games then how do you indulge your interest?" Well, besides looking at amazing artwork, my preferred way of indulging is turning up my music and letting my imagination run wild. Oftentimes I will listen to songs that I can picture my favorite characters listening, singing or dancing to, and before I know it, I'm entranced by mental imagery of the characters acting out the song. When I'm in this mode of "using my imagination", as I call it, reality completely ceases to exist. (And given current world affairs, that might not be such a bad thing...)

However, even though I have been obsessing over video game characters for the past 4 years, I have been lying to both myself and to others about my passion. Socially I "wear a mask" which means that I pretend to like things that I really don't care much about in order to conceal my true passions. I do this because I am afraid of being negatively judged and emotionally hurt. The "masks" I wear are special interests that I did have at some point in the past but I no longer care about them as much in the present. I just fall back on my already-established well of knowledge on those subjects so that I have something "safe" to talk about during social situations. It would make me feel too vulnerable to talk openly about the fact that my true passion in life is having elaborate daydreams involving specific video game characters, especially given the fact that I don't actually play video games.

I don't really know how to conclude this post, I have been working on it for two solid hours and I'm very tired (it's my bedtime). I'll be interested to see what kind of responses I get later.

After all these years...Finally...Someone who also does that! I love getting lost in my imagination with certain characters too! I also love to listen to music while the scene plays out in my mind.

 

[Aspychata]

This is artwork. No matter what people say. I was introduced by my daughter and her love for these different characters. I love creepy ghoulish cartoon drawings, they really pull me in.