Lost on a tangent

Yesterday I found out that the supposed OOC drama I talked about was not in fact OOC drama, but the other guild leader procrastinating her answer. Well, I think we had a friendly and civil exchange of messages afterwards, and she and my rogue will have a little talk in confidence. Let's see what comes out of it.

I think I've finally found the reason why our characters clash at every meeting, but I will have them figure it out for themselves. Or not figure it out at all. Hmm... I don't like applying OOC knowledge to IC situations, but I don't want this alliance to fall apart either. That's a difficult situation to be in. Maybe I'll just decide that my rogue will be in a good mood that particular day, so he won't blow up again. He's rather calm anyway, but at the last meeting too many things happened that ticked him off, and so his troll temper took over. And when this happens, things get... bad.

It doesn't help that he's in a period of change at the moment. He's adjusting to his responsibilities, growing more self-confident, and getting over some things that troubled him. His relationship is really stable now, and all the adversities his partner and he have faced have forged an even stronger bond between them. Plus his troublemaker sister starts to settle down and work on her temper, so there's one thing less to worry about. But as all those changes happen, some of his viewpoints and behavioral patterns change, too. He would never have openly confronted an ally in front of their guildmates before. Nope, he would just have sat there silently and felt miserable. So everything is a bit unusual and inconversant for him - and for me as a player, too.

I love to watch my character grow, I really do. It's not just "dropping some weaknesses", it has been a hard year for him (and a year of long, intense RP sessions and plots for me), and I feel it's understandable for him to finally "grow up". I hope he'll never drift into sue-ish territory; there are enough things about him that would hint at that if I just listed them all. But I've always preferred playing out a character's flaws, having them struggle, having them lose fights or embarrass themselves. Not to the amount of having a broken, overly tragic character who constantly needs to be "healed" - but enough to avoid becoming The Invincible Godmodding Imbadude. (Or Imbadudess, to use everyone's "favourite" suffix ;) ) Okay, at least I hope so - and I regularly check with my RP partners to make sure that I'm not going over the top with anything.

And now I wonder on how many tangents I went off to end up at "Mary Sue/Gary Stu" when I started out with "well, I got a message".