I chose virtues, desires, and relationships for the first question.
Virtues and desires seems fairly straightforward to me; I like to identify with characters that I admire. I like to use them as role models for myself. I didn't choose "flaws", but I think that flaws are still an important part of this, because often the virtue that I do admire will relate to overcoming something generally considered a flaw.
Relationships is a bit different, because the characters I relate to don't always have relationships that I would desire for myself. I think, however, that it's easier to relate to a character through their relationships with others (whether romantic/sexual or not). For me, I think I often view the relationships of identification characters in a more figurative way -- so for instance, with Jack/Ianto, Jack represented social acceptance and validation (or, in the case of CoE, the rejection/refusal of those things), which is something I desire greatly, even though Jack is not the sort of person I would personally want to be involved with.
For the second question I chose aspirations and current issues, which I think is fairly straightforward in my case. If I'm trying to achieve something in my life that requires perseverance and bravery, then I'll relate to a character who either has those skills or is developing them. And I get invested in it to the extent that if the character fails (particularly as a result of developing those skills), then it makes me personally feel like a failure.
ETA: Also, in keeping with some comments above, I do also find myself very interested and invested in characters that I don't relate to. Jack and Gwen are perfect examples of this.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-22 10:46 pm (UTC)Virtues and desires seems fairly straightforward to me; I like to identify with characters that I admire. I like to use them as role models for myself. I didn't choose "flaws", but I think that flaws are still an important part of this, because often the virtue that I do admire will relate to overcoming something generally considered a flaw.
Relationships is a bit different, because the characters I relate to don't always have relationships that I would desire for myself. I think, however, that it's easier to relate to a character through their relationships with others (whether romantic/sexual or not). For me, I think I often view the relationships of identification characters in a more figurative way -- so for instance, with Jack/Ianto, Jack represented social acceptance and validation (or, in the case of CoE, the rejection/refusal of those things), which is something I desire greatly, even though Jack is not the sort of person I would personally want to be involved with.
For the second question I chose aspirations and current issues, which I think is fairly straightforward in my case. If I'm trying to achieve something in my life that requires perseverance and bravery, then I'll relate to a character who either has those skills or is developing them. And I get invested in it to the extent that if the character fails (particularly as a result of developing those skills), then it makes me personally feel like a failure.
ETA: Also, in keeping with some comments above, I do also find myself very interested and invested in characters that I don't relate to. Jack and Gwen are perfect examples of this.