Previous Post Quote: Quote: I think there's a qualative and quantative difference between a professional actor who has elected to live their life that way and an online poster who lent their name to a character a decade ago during a fervid time of poster silliness. Quote: There is, but at the same time, poster-Jay is here to okay or reject any of it. My original point, though, was that it's not unusual in fiction for a real-named character to be a complete deviation from the original. Case in point is this very board. Many of the early posters used their real names as alter-egos for the superhero avatars they names after their poster handles. But it must be a little weird for, say, Lisa to look back on ten year old stories about how big a slut she is. It'll be weirder when her son Christopher reads them. Back in the early days quite a few posters wrote their girlfriends in as romance interests too - Donar, Banjoooo, NTU-150, and Finny all did it. I don't think that any of those posters ended up with those girls, so it was a bit tricky thereafter. Lisa had a good grasp of things, though. Newer posters can't know just how central she was to the character of the early board and how well she smoothed things over. When I first began posting she had her character flirt insatiably with the Hooded Hood, but after a few weeks I got an e-mail from her to check I wasn't uncomfortable about it - which I wasn't - and to assure me that it was all in fun and she wasn't some crazed stalker. It took me a while to realise the boundaries I was comfortable with. Amongst things I probably wouldn't do now but did do in my first year or so writing at Baron Zemo's Lair (as the PVB then was) are introducing poster-Jarvis' new fiancee into the storyline and writing about Lisa's pregnancy and birthgiving and thus introducing Christopher Waltz into continuity. Quote: Quote: I was thinking more from the viewpoint of real Mrs Boaz. Quote: Quote: "Sorry I was up so late, darling. I was writing stories about my fictional wife." Quote: Once again, that has to do with specific people's comfort level. For all we know, the real Mrs. Boaz might enjoy reading about the fictional one. I'd prefer to be sure before trying it these days. I'm aware of at least one partner who was offended by something that was written about them in a story on the board (long ago). Quote: I should also say, though, personally I've always been a little uncomfortable casting myself into fiction. Something about the temptation to identify too closely with the fictional character, I guess. That's why all of my characters are pieces of me, but not the whole thing. Also I think writing oneself into fiction tends to become very self-indulgent - "Mary-Sue-ish" as Kirk would call it.

I agree with Ian... I would advise against anyone using their real life names in the PVB, not because of any major issues, but for all the reasons he lists. Fiction like this is a fragile hobby, and it really takes very litttle to discourage people. Besides, to me this place is all about escapism, and using real life names just drags those troubles in with you.

I remember actively squashing other early posters attempts to establish my own name as Visionary's "real" name. It's the reason Vizh has no last name, in fact, since I didn't want him to have mine, and couldn't be bothered to come up with a fictional one.

Hence Cheryl never had a last name either, though no explanation was ever given why. Still it made things rough when the real Cheryl and I divorced. I ultimately left her character unused for a long while, and t wasn't until much later that I esablished that she and Vizh were no longer together, and longer still before I was willing to see a reason why in continuity.

Honestly, it's just not worth it.