posted
You read a book and relate to a character. You become immersed in this character, their thoughts, their mind, their life. You watch a film, or a television series, or you read another book, and you do the same thing, absorbing a character. Eventually you look back at how you deal with tasks, relationships, and just plain life in general and you can identify almost everything back to a character whose life you have lived. And now you wonder, were you drawn to those characters because you were already similar to them and that is why you can compare these things to these characters? Or can you compare these things to these characters because you have given up your personality and taken on theirs? And if you did trade some of who you were for who these fictional beings are, is it a shallow and temporary change, or is it written into you as if it had always been there?
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posted
Probably not the characteristics, but I've read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead so many times for so long that I'm occasionally shocked to find what I thought were my own thoughts coming out of Ender's mouth.
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I recently read a book my roommate has been pushing me to read since FOREVER, and now I constantly find myself saying "Nothing is ever easy".
Tolkien and Rowling have also been written into my soul, as well as Card and Hobb. It's more that I adapt the catchphrases and use them whenever I'm speaking.
posted
I think some of my more antiquated vocabulary words and phrases probably come from characters in books and movies. Perhaps because something in what those characters say or stand for resonates with me, and when I go to express something similar, the phrase comes back to me readily.
My other thought on this involves uniqueness. As much as we like thinking of ourselves as singular and special individuals, it's also comforting to know we are not completely unique. I am different from the people around me, but we still share some feelings, similar experiences, interests, philosophies, etc. In reading or watching stories about people like us, we come to a better understanding of ourselves.
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I speak in the style of whoever i'm surrent;y reading. Like, when I'm reading Pride and Prejudice, I'm talking like Elizabeth.
I think a lot of my personality comes from the characters of Ivanova and Delenn on Babylon 5. My mom thinks so too, so it can't be all my imagination.
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I do that too. Like if I read Angela's Ashes I think in an Irish accent for days. Or an English one for HP and I use words like "ruddy". There's a ton of characters I identify with. Like Akemi in Kabuki. Except for the killing people thing.
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I pick up emotions. If I'm reading a book filled with depressing characters or actions, I start acting depressed. IF they are fun energetic people, I start feeling more fun and energetic.
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Another thing I do is pick up on anime. For example, one of the themes in Gundam Wing is 'do as your heart tells you', which I use freqently.
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I've just found it odd how I tend to respond to certain situations the same way as different characters...I was reading Ender's Game again the other day and I noticed that I tend to respond to social situations in a similar way to how Ender responds...and I can't help but wonder if I have been influenced by this character to be like this, or if I was always like that and am only noticing it now that I see it in someone else...
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I react to visual things. Movies. The occaisional strong imaged-book. It's happened more than once that I've seen the movie and then people have commented on how much I look like so-and-so, not because I physically do (although they're always female, young etc) but because I've stolen the actors/characters actions and way of speaking.
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Actually, Trevor, ever since I started actually living that way, I've been happier. Of course, it hasn't come back to bite me in the rear yet, either.
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TMedina: I have to agree with MaydayDesiax about living as my heart tells me. The decisions I most regret so far in my life have been the ones made too rationally or too emotionally (or without enough of either).
Then again, it could simply be coincidence.
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My experience has been a mixed bag - I have the poor timing to listen to the wrong one at the wrong time.
I listened to my heart when I would have been better served listening to my head and vice versa.
It would be fair to say my experience has been generally bad, but I would hate to consign everyone to my particular fate.
But by the same token, being ruled by one and not the other has it's own set of consequences. As I told Mayday, I hope it never comes back to haunt you (or her).
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