Ette

Do either of you have tumblrs that you upload character screens to by any chance? I realllllly want to like your posts if so @A@ Oh maaaan! @u@ You're flustering me. The image was posted to my personal tumbles but I've got a character tumblr preemptively set up here where I'll probably be posting a gratuitous amount of screenshots come expac.

HYPE TRAIN PART 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO I have to say I'm pretty happy with the customization options. They gave us eye gradients. Eye gradients. If I had a gripe it'd be that horns are facelocked. I have been fooling around with options for my tiny haughty mobwife but I think I'm setting on this look: Other vanity shots under the cut.

As a brown girl IRL I GOT WORDS. For introduction sake this is me at the absolute palest I will ever be, link here! And this is J, link here! If your immediate assumption is that I choose Miqo’te so that I could play a roundface browngirl you are 100% correct. Often times I feel like when you’re a brown girl you get typecast into either the sexless fighter chick (who is also from a tribe if you are in a fantasy world) or a sexy bellydancer. As someone who follows a pretty strict “write/draw what you wanna see” policy I can’t really complain about that and then play a myriad of pale characters. So generally I play characters closer to my skintone or darker in different roles. Usually nerds. Or mages. Or both. Listen ok, I have a type. There’s definitely a lot of nuances I’ve picked up from my skin color and how I identify with it to how people write about it. For instance I’ve noticed that for a lot of people “dark skinned” is closer to how I immediately identify “pale skin”. Or people will write about how J is “exotic” when I tried to make her features (save for her eyes) very boring and nondescript even if I changed her skin color.

Honestly I feel like the desire to be right overwrites the desire to have a conversation in many cases. This is also the case with many a place/people IRL but the problem here juxtaposed with two things: We’re all nerds playing Catgirls Online but seem to have forgotten we’re all nerds playing Catgirls Online. Even though many of us are just a bunch of text on a screen that text has been written by real people. I actually don’t care about sniping and snark here and there. It’s whatever. Sometimes it’s even well placed and funny. What I do think needs to stop is like. . . Alright, hypothetical example. I have a chubby Seeker. I make a thread asking if anyone else’s characters have a bodytype that deviates from the model. At some point someone posts that they think my fatcat is lore breaking. I reply with an explanation for why she is the way she is but ultimately agree to disagree. They post that no they will not agree to disagree and here is why. Thread devolves into six pages of the same point being echoed over and over and over with a rapidly degrading tone. There are just times when you need to leave the keyboard and ask yourself if telling a person they’re wrong fifty eight different ways about a fictional universe is worth it. I don’t personally feel like I’ve been the victim of this but I have watched and I do feel for some of these people. I can only imagine how much it sucks to be excited over a shiny new toy and then told that not only is your toy bad but YOU are bad for liking it.

Oh boy I get to make another list. Someone who knows the time and place for multi-para. I love multi-para. I don’t mind waiting on multi-para. I don’t want to play with someone dropping four emotes worth of para in the bar, however. Someone who isn’t afraid to make fun of their character, portray their characters in an unattractive light, or have their characters be wrong. I just can't deal with a character who is correct and sexyfine all the time anymore. Someone who is willing to speak and be friendly with me OOC.I want to feel like I can actually talk to the player. Being BEST FRIENDS isn’t a requirement (though it’s totally a perk) but if I feel like I can’t approach someone about what times they’re on or a problem I have then. . . Well, that’s a problem! On that note: Someone who will also reach out to me for RP.Chasing people all the time isn’t any fun. Hooks and hooks and hooks and hooks. I absolutely love people who will lay out things that my character can react to. Good characterization. I don’t necessarily need characters to feel like people so much as I need them to be three dimensional and interesting. I want my time spent interacting with a character to feel rewarding as I begin to uncover what makes them tick and why they act as they do. RP that serves to further an overarching plot. The plot doesn’t have to be big, mind you. However I do want to feel that our characters are impacting and influencing one another. Small filler RP is cute but I don’t want all my RP to be fluff. BE BIG OL’ PARA TRASH JUST LIKE ME. Yup. It’s me. I’m that person. Will you let me throw three emotes with of text at you and still speak to me afterwards? GREAT. EXCELLENT. It’s not a requirement but good golly will I like you for it.

I mean once more for me it just boils down to: Who cares? While I stick closer to lore in this setting there ARE things that are plausible if not rare and I’ve taken interest in inside other settings. Like. . . I don’t roleplay to impress people with how staggeringly lore friendly my characters are. I roleplay to have fun. So if I have to choose between something that gets me excited to write about and something I enjoy or appeasing internet strangers who I wouldn’t have played with anyway I’m just. . . Gonna choose the former? And as someone who isn’t playing anything too lore bendy at the moment I would much rather play with say, a Roegadyn dragoon than someone who is playing an Elezen archer if the former is more fun and engaging. TL;DR “Because it’s fun.” I say as I shrug a whole lot.

Get out of here. I'm really, really loving how you do black and white. The flow of the lines! The personality that comes off on the characters! Hurgh, it's all so pretty.

-BURSTS INTO THREAD HOLDING VARIOUS SCREENSHOTS AND WHEEZING- I HEARD WE WERE TALKING ABOUT RP FASHION. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT RP FASHION. I'll admit though, some of these are dresses. One of these isn't even supposed to be a dress! I'm pretty happy with the glade tunic for a modest length dress/skirt for the time being but I would also like MORE.

. . . We're totally mutuals on tumblr and I had no idea you RP'd in MMOs. What a small world! That being said I love to Heavy para into the goddamn sunset if I know my partners won't kill me for it. I've got a mechanicat that can maybe (???) get thrown at one of your characters!

Sexist misogynist alert! I'mbeingsarcasticifyoucan'ttell RESPECT MY PRONOUNS CIS SCUM But yeah there's such thing as bad RP, there's a spectrum to everything. Pulling the elitism card is just a blanket defense against muh equality n' fairness. No, there's such thing as good and bad everything. Don't lie to people by saying they're not bad, encourage them to be better. BACK ON TOPIC: In all regards though, DRK is a wicked class and I expect more or less general PLD RPers to just be getting a bigger sword and proceeding a usual. Mages might pick it up as a means to incorporate magic into their newfound blademastery, hell, it's super open ended. There's gonna be the lot that will pull the uncreative card and just Guts McEdge all over the place though. And that's as normal as a Miqo ERPer in the QS wearing nothing but the Hempen set charging 40k an RP. I love Ul'Dah. I love you. And then there'll be the few people who take and respect the concept of Dark Knight and play it as something awesome and engaging. There's a spectrum for everything, if some people want to water down the job into mundane greatsword swinging, then it's cool for others to want to pump it up into the dark magic using bigsword edgy badassery. And I'll be roleplaying with the folks on both ends and having a blast. ^This right here. Hell yes. LEMME SUM UP MY BEEF IN A SINGLE PICTURE, THOUGH: I do think that there's an objective good and bad to roleplay. There's a lot of things people are universally going to agree on for either side. At least create an environment where people who WANT to pull the topic off well aren't afraid to play their characters.

Bad ideas/concepts/plots are played, not made. Like. . . Don’t wax poetic about all your DARK and MUDEROUS rage publicly and you should do fine. I’m also going to take a shot in the dark here and say Dark Knights aren’t horribly known to common folk. It’s probably not the sort of thing you talk about when you first meet someone unless they happen upon your character throwing FRIGGIN’S SICK magical fast balls. While I won’t be playing DRK (ASTROLOGIAN AND MACHINIST,HOLLA) I’m pretty much down to play with people who are so long as they aren’t using it as the one defining thing about their character. If someone has an interesting character and good roleplay and fun plots like. . . What does it matter? What the hell does it matter? Dark Knight sounds potentially cool as hell.

#Mechanicat

Pizza

AH. HERE WE ARE. MY LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT BAR RP. It sucks when you have a character who’s too naïve to realize people proooooobably just want to do the do with them. While I made J’nali to be pretty timid I also gave her a multitude of reasons for why she wouldn’t like or go along with this kind of behavior. It’s a dangerous world out there, after all, and so generally she seeks to avoid situations that could get her in trouble. BUT if you don’t have that, well, why would your character bother going over to someone’s house anyway? I mean, maybe I’m just asocial but generally I don’t go to someone’s house if I don’t know them well. Especially if said house is SUPER FAR from where we are or in another goddamn city state. Don’t get me wrong, some people just want to get away from bar chatter! A good solution to this is just to have your character suggest they go somewhere else in the city that’s a little more quiet. That way should anything get weird you can just dart. And, really, don’t be afraid to just duck away from situations that make you uncomfortable. It’s a game. You’re playing dollies in the pretendy fun time doll house. If someone else is making you OOCly uncomfortable you do not owe them any courtesy. Especially if you say to them “hey I’m not super comfortable with this” and they continue to press matters. Granted, a lot of people are generally understanding if you send them a tell about being uncomfortable with whatever situation you’re in.

MY TWO CENTS: Have a good time for when you can be contacted, actually contact the person in question, and bring an RP hook to set down on the table. I’m all for player proactivity and I do take pretty active steps in keeping up with the people who I want to play with but a good litmus test for if I want to play with someone if they actually seem like they want to play with me. If I have to constantly hound them down for every interaction and constantly have to come up with a hook for why our characters are interacting then it begins to feel less like an RP scene between two people and more like work. I’m not here to work. I mean. . . I don’t know. I feel as if it should kind of go without saying that if you want to do something with someone you should actively try to do the thing. I want to feel like someone is tossing out a line because they want to write a rad story with my characters, not because they want to look like a friendly face on a public forum. Also I don’t actually see what the big deal is about breaking out into “the community” which seems really odd and nebulous to begin with. But maybe that’s because if the RPC was a neighborhood I’d be that one neighbor that lives on the edge of town and never goes outside and maybe -crosses fingers- is probably accused of witchcraft at least one. I’m cool with that. I like that fringe.

J'nali collects bugs. Or, well, she used to collect bugs but doesn't really have anywhere to keep them anymore. Nowadays she kind of just goes looking, picks them up, and lets them crawl around on her. Occasionally she talks to them but they don't usually talk back.

http://peoplewithcatears.tumblr.com/ I'M HELPING.

Sorry this is the closest I could find.

I AM SO HERE FOR THIS. Nigel and J. Remove the sexual and romantic undertones. Or don't. Either works. 3PyoxMSEHYI And Sylas and Lafiaht are probably: 5nCTtcq8Fhw

I wanna say it's something cool but it's probably just this: QEExYuRelbg

We made a discovery. J: Nigel: Nigel to J:

"Shout out to all u random ass dudes tryna touch me: Please Stop."

Write what you like, with people that you like, who like you, in spaces that you’re comfortable. Spaces you’re comfortable aren’t limited to ingame, either. For instance I need at least ten minutes (usually) before I go into a scene. I need to remember HOW THE HELL TO PLAY MY OWN DAMN CHARACTER (no seriously). I probably need some coffee or tea. I gotta listen to some tunes that remind me of her or set the mood for the scene I’m trying to write. Bear in mind I’m super ADD (the diagnosed kind not the LOL RANDOM LOOK A SQUIRREL kind) so my environment is a contributing factor to what kind of posts I’ll be cranking out. Read your dialogue out loud. Does it sound stilted? Well now you can audibly hear that it does and understand how to fix it. Things tend to have a habit of sounding better in my head so sometimes it helps to write. Realize that a ton of people are SUPER INSECURE about a lot of things and it’s not just you. I know I worry all the damn time about whether or not my writing is entertaining. The thing is people usually won’t hang around someone they don’t like and don’t have fun with for over long. If someone has been your RP partner for six months (or several years I mutter as I look towards my poor probably stockholmed RP friends) they’re probably gonna be around for another six months. And if people don't like your stuff? Well, we're our own worst critics. Whatever they're saying is probably mild by comparison. Purple prose good writing does not make. You do you. It’s cool to write big long posts. It’s cool to write itty bitty posts. Just make sure whatever you’re trying to convey is being conveyed. Also as someone who deals with anxiety don’t be afraid to voice your concerns to your friends. They’re your friends for a reason. Sometimes I do need a "nah you're fun to write with" and it snaps me out of whatever funk I'm in.

Finding a real life picture of J is kinda hard since she's an ambiguously brown, kinda chubby, mechanicat who is covered in piercings. I have someone CLOSE-ish to her, though. Jessica Parker Kennedy as Max in Black Sails is like a less frumpy version of J.