Stumbled across another youtuber. His This Question Made My D&D Chracter 10x Better feels like proactive roleplaying advice for a player stuck in a non-proactive game. This core question "What do I want from the other characters at this table, and what stands in the way of getting it?" along with the concept of making it portable if you are creating a character in isolation is a compelling idea that I think can move into a proactive structure as part of my background/bio template.