So, I'm currently studying to understand someone else's work and also to create my own work.
One day, This topic [ https://e621.net/forum_topics/31952 ] came to my attention.　... Very interesting to me.
Today I had a question while working : How do one decide the invisible part of characters, that is, their personality?

Yes, I can give my characters surface/shallow traits, such as "friendliness", "short-temper" etc.　But, Characters must have roles in every story so creating them randomly is impossible, IMO.
It made me think, in order to create characters, it is also necessary to "design" their personality.　Unfortunately, No sense of character creation is in my mind, so I now need to build up my knowledge...

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... Suddenly, a thought came to mind : Oh, maybe it also applies to IRL?　My question has changed then : What are the ways in which one can understand what other people think, and ultimately, understand people themselves?　Looking back, this world is full of people with different ideas.　Naturally, that includes strange(?) people.　(( Hey, who said this fox being strange!? ))

To "understand" would be to guess a person's inner ideals - What they like and what they can't tolerate?　As an experiment, I did MBTI on myself --- ISTP plus INTP.　Hm, That's funny.　It convinced me that my style "Watch, Ask, Try" would still help me.
On the other hand, strangely enough, a kind of people everywhere who make a lot of mistakes don't think about themselves or what others think of them.　Last year, I had a hard time getting frustrated with them (and still do).　 _{(( This is what I always tell them ： I only help those who try to "understand" anything ; I will Not help you If you do not try to "understand" what I say or even what I am. ))}

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Now, I'd like to ask you 2 things :
- What are ways to decide characters' personality?
- How do you understand people IRL?

At this moment, Psychology and Personality-disorders are in my mind.　Actually, I am interested in metacognition, but I don't really understand it.

What do you think?

Now, I'd like to ask you 2 things :

- What are ways to decide characters' personality?

First of all, I want to clarify again that I just a simple consumer of Furry Art, and not yet (if ever) an artist. However I would say that it is a very important question given the overflow of UNINTERESTING (at least to me) characters that appear in modern comics of furry art, and in this site in particular. Things have advanced artistically in that you see a lot of comics with very acceptable drawing and even ordered sequence of events, with obnoxious characters and so disparate situations that I cannot even withstand for 2 pages.

But I will not rant beyond my fair lot, and simply point the obvious. The first Maestros of Furry Art and comics trended to design first the UNIVERSE in which their characters will appear... in an Historical, Economical, Technological, Emotional, etcetera... environment. And then, you simply ask, what a person with these very general personal traits would do... and I think, that that will be enough. No need to "design a character personality" in ultra detail.

Honestly, I don't believe that I understand precisely what you are asking for... but anyway, I give you something that with the contribution of other users, may help you at the end.

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- How do you understand people IRL?

At this moment, Psychology and Personality-disorders are in my mind.　Actually, I am interested in metacognition, but I don't really understand it.

What do you think?

I am not a psychologist, profession that I respect... at least, for the ones that at have read the minimum number of books and had enough praxis to call themselves decently "psychologists". I have studied a bit of psychology in my free time. There is a whole field of study in psychology called "Psychology of Personality"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_psychology

This field has to do with trying, among other things, to classify people into "groups", based in collection of data and models of the mind. Some of these groups, is believed, could be more suited, to certain kind of jobs, or react differently in different situations. I don't know how it works in Japan, @Kurogi FoxSIV, but in the Western World that is way when you apply for a job, the "Personnel / Human Resources Department" of a Company, may ask you to respond to a questionaire, to determine "your traits". This as also lead to some interesting fiction, like this movie...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(1997_film)#

I believe that to "determine the personality" of a person in an open and changing environment, specially with incentives to cheat, lie, act and simulate (e.g. when applying for a job, when there is pressure of reward or punishment, etc.) it is very difficult. Still, there is people that with enough experience in dealing with people and seeing the longitudinal evolution, could be VERY accurate in judging people.

People that interacts very much with other people, in special situations, like doctors, nurses, coaches, policemen, long practicing psychologists... could be.

Since I am not a very good at "reading people", what I do, is to try to order the situation, so not being unpleasantly surprised very much.

Regards.

mexicanfurry said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(1997_film)

Please do this for Wikipedia links ending with a )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(1997_film)#

or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(1997_film)

lance_armstrong said:
Please do this for Wikipedia links ending with a )

Oh, I see that problem... I will do so, and correct.

Thanks.

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Here is the Wikipedia article about the concept...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition

You know, the first psychologists, like those of the XIX century, started their studies with "self-observation", say, to try to observe yourself in what you think, how you feel, how you learn, and find patterns in your own thought. Which is not new... as the article says, and it's true, that it exists since the times of Aristotle.

Eventually this approach was discarded in the Western World psychology because... it is not "observational" or "objective" to others. And Positivism was the mode of the Science on those days. And therefore, although it may seem at first glance very promising, didn't have the impact of other things like "Conditioning" (Pavlov), Psychophysics (Fechner) or "Behaviourism" (Watson, Skinner, etc.).

So, you could see it as being a "refried" of "Selbstbeobachtung"... and could have the old know flaws... in that what you yourself think you discover, could be somehow "subjective", but to me, that do not mean that it couldn't be "useful"... even more useful in the conduction of your own life, that all the other things. It has to be with "awareness" and "self-control", something that could have a large impact in your life.

One of the problems with "self-observation", is that it is "costly", it cannot be applied easily in situations that demand a rapid decision or action. It is not how our brains are designed to work in real time situations... altough could be very useful in some other situations. Precisely there have been recently other books on how our train of thought could be controled or should be used...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

Besides, I would say that it will be an amenable thing for you ponder, Kurogi ... since Oriental tradition is more amenable to themes like control of thought, than the Western one.

It is also interesting to me.

I have read again the whole entry about "Metacognition".

There are currently a lot of new perspectives of that concept (e.g. social, animal, mental illness, art). Could be precisely the field that would interest me most about Psychology, for the rest of my life.

And will be one of the things that I will take with me, in my time in E6. ;-)

So, thank you Kurogi.

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... It made me think, in order to create characters, it is also necessary to "design" their personality.　Unfortunately, No sense of character creation is in my mind, so I now need to build up my knowledge...

～～～～～～～～～～
... Suddenly, a thought came to mind : Oh, maybe it also applies to IRL?　My question has changed then : What are the ways in which one can understand what other people think, and ultimately, understand people themselves?
.... To "understand" would be to guess a person's inner ideals - What they like and what they can't tolerate?

According to "Metacognition" (the article) you observe yourself, and that gives you hints to understand how a human being, thinks. You could develop that knowledge to a great extent. That could give you hints to try to understand other human beings, but having into account, thay that your information about them is more limited. Even more so, if they belong to another culture.

Then, you could also apply your understanding of yourself and others, to the design of characters... or better, infer how they would react in certain situation, as a story unfolds.

TGIF！　TGIS！
For a few days, I thought about this topic as I walked all over the place... Like a mouse?　Or to be more precise, I was such an "armchair theorist".
So, I have No knowledge and experience enough to build my thoughts.

The first Maestros of Furry Art and comics trended to design first the UNIVERSE in which their characters will appear... in an Historical, Economical, Technological, Emotional, etcetera... environment. And then, you simply ask, what a person with these very general personal traits would do... and I think, that that will be enough. No need to "design a character personality" in ultra detail.

Um, I had completely forgotten about it.
That is, outside of the characters, isn't it.　Where they are, What happens to them ^{((Falling into dark-side etc.))}, and What their goal is in life ...

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And Why I let myself in on this point is because I lately watched YouTube and other sites for story creation.

mexicanfurry said: ... given the overflow of UNINTERESTING (at least to me) characters that appear in modern comics of furry art, and in this site in particular. Things have advanced artistically in that you see a lot of comics with very acceptable drawing and even ordered sequence of events, with obnoxious characters and so disparate situations that I cannot even withstand for 2 pages.

This is Exactly what in my mind.
In our country, people often say regularly: Characters are important for an exciting work. But their cleverness cannot exceed what an artist's can do.
But, I am not good at putting-into-words Why a work Is interesting or Not.

It also explains why I'm not (very) good at socializing.　My boss at work told me I lacked self-observation.
In other words, I need to develop the ability to judge other People and myself, apparently.　_{(( Yeah, I do I think I can believe/trust both you two ;p ))}
Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow ... Okay gotcha, I will try to find various works and books.

It Should've arrived at this place much earlier for me ...
^{もっと早く、ここへ辿り着くべきでしたね ...}

post #2756138 ＊＊ Fox wagging tail ＊＊
Thank you very much-