The Master/Slave Aspect in my RP

I've been getting some flak for this, so I'll address it. Again.

Honestly, I've gotten a lot of flak for it over the years. Whatever. I'm not changing my character(s) so that I try to please everyone. It doesn't work.

I'm also not going to stop mentioning it on my RL account, either.

So here is a brief explanation for both the RP aspect and the RL aspect.

Shara The Orion:

Shara has no desire to lose her freedom. To her, there would be no worse fate than to be put back into a situation where she has lost her freedom, where she is someone's property. She has no desire to be a slave.

For the most part.

Her experience as a slave wasn't always unpleasant. She had several Masters over the years that were benevolent and kind, and they treated her more like a treasured pet than their property. With those Masters, she was pampered, treated well, shown a great deal of affection.

No, it wasn't ideal, but it wasn't bad. Not compared to the Masters that beat her, hurt her, and far, far worse.

So she has what Ian refers to as her "Dark Side." The part of her that craves that type of relationship. Being "owned" by someone, but with the safety of having her freedom. A roleplay within a roleplay, if you will.

It also explains her attraction to dangerous men. Powerful men. Deadly men. The type of men who were her Masters.

Shara O'Ryan:

My reasons for my love of collars and cuffs are far different.

I own and run my own company. I also run a household. I am in charge, making decisions all day - every day. I often need to channel my inner bitch.

And I am okay with that.

But the appeal of finding someone worthy of my trust - someone that I can hand over my control to for a time - is a very attractive one for me.

I'm not weak or submissive as a general rule. Quite the opposite.

But to be able to find someone worthy of collaring me, strong enough to handle me, who can take control behind closed doors? Whose pet I can be? Who would treasure me and allow me to adore him in return?

Someone who would treat me as an equal outside of the bedroom, but who would relish a gentle touch on my collar and a knowing smile when we're out in the public eye, enjoying it when I blushed at this gentle, private reminder of what goes on behind closed doors?

That, my friends, would be my Heaven.

"Air Tweets" - a follower's opinion

First of all, let me say that the following is just my opinion and I'm not saying that every role-playing group needs to do what I suggest. I am just giving my opinion as a follower of a lot of RP groups.


Let me also say that this comment is not directed at any particular person or group - I have seen it a LOT. From a lot of different groups.


Now, on with the blog post.

"Air Quote" - A tweet that's directed at another RPer, but there's no @. Sometimes no name is mentioned, either.

This is different from what our RP group calls a "stand-alone tweet." A stand-alone is more like a monologue. We use it when we are trying to either convey the thoughts of the character or if we are trying to make sure that followers are up to speed on what has happened already in a storylines. They are used to try to help followers to understand what's going on, and generally are used as some type of explanation. 


These are particularly helpful in a long or complicated storyline, especially if something profound has happened and if followers missed that crucial development, they'll have trouble following the SL. They can also be helpful when you are trying to set up the scene.


There are some groups who will also make tweets that are not really directed towards anyone, but they are basically breaking down the fourth wall temporarily and making a comment to followers - again, it's generally to let the followers know what the character is thinking, or maybe what the writer is thinking.


Air quotes are entirely different.


There are times when two or more characters will have an entire conversation without a single @ reply.


If you are following everyone involved, it's hilarious. If you are not following one or more characters in the conversation, it's very confusing and annoying.


What makes it worse is that you can't follow the person that the other one is talking to because you don't have a username mentioned. What makes it even worse than that if the name that is used in the air quotes is the name of more than one character, so you don't have any idea of who you need to follow.


I have checked the profiles of people doing this so that I can find out who the air quotes are directed to and follow that person, and that is also a lesson in frustration many times.  I can't find the username of the person they're talking to! They have used all air quotes! If they don't have too many people that they are following, then I can try and go down their followers and try and find out who I need to follow, but sometimes that doesn't work either.


Then I will try and find a list so that I can see the entire conversation and see who is speaking to whom. That does not work very often, either.


I love to find new role players to follow. I love to watch role-playing scenes and storylines. But it's very difficult to follow along in situations where you're only seeing half or one third of a conversation and you have no way of knowing who the other person is.


I know that sometimes it's hard when one person in a conversation has fewer followers than another. The only people that will see the conversation (if you @ the other person at the beginning of the tweet) are followers that follow both characters. This can be especially difficult if it's a new character and has only a handful of followers.


What we will do in that case is to have the user name at the end of the tweet. Or somewhere in the middle. Or whatever. But we always try to tag the person being spoken to somewhere in the tweet.


This actually does two things.


1. It's a courtesy to the followers - they can see who you're talking to and they can follow that person if they choose.


2. It also helps to build a follower count for other people. I know that there are times when @SharaTheOrion interacts with new people and the new person will get followers simply because she's interacting with them and people see that there is a new role player around. Or maybe not even a new person, but someone that they haven't seen before. 


Again, I am not saying that people have to do what I suggest. I'm just saying that if I'm having this kind of frustration, I imagine that other people are, too.

I give credit where credit is due

I follow a lot of role-playing accounts and role-playing groups. I easily follow dozens of groups.

Many of the ones I follow are good. In every group you have at least one or two excellent role players. Some groups have more than that.

But every so often you have a group that simply has an amazing combination.

• All of the characters that are canon have the voice of the character down pat.
• The storylines are compelling.
• The out of character interaction is fun to watch.
• The action flows nicely and there aren't any major time lags in the RP.
• All of the participants have good grammar and spelling.
• They interact with followers both ic and ooc.

There are very few role-playing groups that actually have me looking at the list and hitting refresh so that I can see everything as it happens.

But there is one that I have started to follow that does this.

It's a new Firefly RPG. You can see the list here:

https://twitter.com/#!/DiffDimensionRP/firefly-rp

You can choose to follow the list and/or to follow everyone that is on the list - I recommend both.

In case you are wondering: no, I do not play any of the roles in this group. I simply love the RP.

I hope you'll take a few minutes to check them out. They have a great story line and running now, and I know they're going to have some awesome ones in the future.

Why There is Sex in RP

This question keeps coming up, so I'm going to throw my two cents worth in. Why? Because I have a blog, and I am NOT afraid to use it, dammit. 


To me, there is a very simple answer: because, in the real world, people have sex. It's a normal part of relationships - if you are an adult and you have the level of commitment you feel is necessary to warrant sexual involvement (dating, engaged, married, whatever your personal feelings are), you have sex.


Because of this fact, most fiction you see geared to adults (or even teens, in some cases) has an element of sex if romance enters the picture.


I've heard the saying "Star Wars didn't have sex in it!" - well, while there was nothing graphically portrayed, of course there was sex in it. Luke and Leia didn't just show up in a turnip patch. Padme didn't have immaculate conception. 


And you can't tell me that Han and Leia weren't well on their way to doing the horizontal mambo. Seriously. Han is ten kinds of hawtness and yummy.


(And we'll conveniently skip the part where Leia and Luke were smooching.)


Now, if you don't like watching the SLs where there is sex, there is a very simple answer. It's called the "Unfollow" button. There are times when I've made posts about suggestions or my personal preference for RP, but in the end, everyone is in control of what they RP. Some people will like it, and some will hate it. It's okay.


As far as Star Trek - um....I play an Orion. They OOZE sexuality. It's not some chaste character to play (although my three Orion characters are quite different in that aspect). So maybe my perception is different because I see it as a given with my main character.


I dunno.


So my advice is to follow whom you want. Unfollow those you don't like to watch. Live and let live. 

Some RP Guidelines

I know that there are a lot of RP groups out there, and also some people that may want to start up their own RP group.


Please keep in mind that these are just some general guidelines and things that we do for our group. This isn't saying that you have to follow these guidelines if you have a group of your own, it just makes things easier for us.


Our group has three rules:


1. No drama in the public feed. If you have an argument with someone, take it to DMs or somewhere else off the feed. Take it to your blog. Take it to e-mail. Take it to chat. Handle it however you want to, but do not have the drama fest in the feed. Period.

2. No unauthorized jacking - a lot of times when one of our characters signs off, you'll see them say something like "So and so has jacking rights." This is especially true if someone has to leave in the middle of a scene. The reason that we do this is so that the other players are not stuck mid-scene. They can move things along even if they are missing a player.


"Jacking" is short for "hijacking" - one player saying that another player is doing or saying something. 


Jacking another player (unless permission was given) is a definite no-no in our group. If I see it happening, and I have not seen permission given in the feed, I am very quick to send a DM and make sure that prior permission was given between the two parties.
      

There's a reason for this. Several, actually. The first is just that it's common courtesy. The second reason is it can disrupt a person's storyline if they are jacked.  It can disrupt a storyline that is already planned for the future, or it can disrupt a part of the character's back story.


3. Keep it PG-13 in the public feed - I do not have a problem at all if somebody wants to cybersex. I honestly don't. In fact, there are some cyber feeds I enjoy watching.


However, in the public feed (for our group), I ask that everybody keeps things PG-13. 


Why? Well, we do have subscribers for the RSS feed that don't want to see anything over PG-13. They subscribe to the feed for the storylines, and they really just don't want to see anything graphic.


Another reason is because of the fact that anyone can see the public feed - including minors. It just makes me feel a little squicked out to think that minors could be reading stuff that was adult in nature, simply by doing a Twitter search (for something that was sci-fi related, for example).


Still another reason is the fact that we do have some players that are under 18. I can't control what they do if it doesn't involve the RPG, but I can ask that they keep things PG-13 when it comes to RPG activity.


That's pretty much it. We don't have a requirement as far as activity is concerned (although if someone is going to be away for a while, it's nice if they check in every so often). We don't have a requirement as far as clearing storylines with the group leader (as long as the no jacking rule is followed, of course). 


I hope this helps to answer some questions. Feel free to leave comments.

RP Hater on Twitter - Part 8 Bazillion

I used "8 bazillion" this post because, quite frankly, I have lost count with how many times one certain RPer has caused trouble in the RP 'verse.


It amazes me how people can't let things go. Honestly, this person has screenshots from well over a year ago, claiming that they show her being "cyberbullied." 


------ [side rant]


Just as a side note - I really do hate that word, unless it is being used with children. 


Children are bullied. 


Adults are either:

• Discussing
• Debating
• Arguing
• Harassing

It is what used to be called "being an ass."

But, I digress.

-------- [/rant]

This person has truly harassed numerous people in the Star Wars RP 'verse. She has posted the IP addresses of several RPers, among other things.  Do you want to know what the main offense was for this, plus her barrage of insults and cries of betrayal?

Several RPers (myself included) had been sitting around discussing different RP's, and the comment was made that this particular RPer had a recurring theme - getting pregnant and having babies, then trying to kill them in various ways. It seems like every time we turned around, she was pregnant again. And the babies grew up within a matter of weeks.  And she was jumping off of buildings and trying to drown them and stuff. It was truly odd.

We made no attempt to hide the conversation, and we discussed many other aspects of different RP's.  (It was a slow night.) If I remember correctly, some aspects of my own RP were discussed. (My characters tend to have numerous bed partners and also have those bed partners die off rather often. *shrugs*)

She went absolutely ballistic and began what has become more than a year-long tirade against the entire Star Wars 'verse. 

In another incident, she has badgered one RPer to the point where the player was going to shut the account down (but, thankfully, didn't.  This person that she attacked was someone who had never even tweeted on her account before the attacks began.)

Many of the people in the RP community retaliated, defending the people who had been harassed and attacked by this person. Was it the right thing to do? Perhaps, perhaps not. I just find it very difficult to stand by and not say something when I see these kinds of things going on. I try not to have a whole lot of ooc commentary and/or drama in the feed, but I certainly am not opposed to blog posts or other ways of voicing opinions.

I say all of that to give a little bit of history.

Now she is back, once again claiming that she is the one that is being "cyberbullied." She even claims that one RPer who only RTed 2 tweets is cyberbullying her. 

I feel sorry for her. She clearly is disturbed on some deep level. 

I just wanted to say 3 things.

1. If you post information that is easily disproved - and people disprove it - don't get all bent out of shape over it. That is not being cyberbullied.  That is called "being shown to be full of sh*t." Suck it up and deal with it.
2. If Person A comes along and says they've had problems with person after person after person - at some point you have to look at the one who is the common denominator with all of these situations and realize that the problem is not everyone else in the entire RP 'verse. It's Person A. 
3. If you look at different RP groups and you see which ones are growing and which ones are not, that is a good indication of the types of people that are in them. If you see one particular group that is never growing, or it seems to lose members faster than it finds them, or if the group will gain members and then have a falling out soon thereafter - something is wrong. See Point #2. 

I am sure this is not the last post that I'm going to have on this subject, but it's all I have for now.

RL vs RP

The motto of our group is always that RL comes first.  It has to be that way.  RP is fun, but RL is simply more important.


But, if someone has a conflict or an issue that needs attention (work, family stuff, etc.), I always ask that they give me a heads up if possible.


So, I wanted to give everyone a heads up about what's going on with me, and let you know that I may not be on  as much as I usually am.


I won't be talking about this much (if at all) ooc on the RP feed because I don't feel like it's something I want to discuss.  I'd rather have RP be my "happy place."  If you want to ask me about it or chat about it, DM me or talk to me on my RL account: @Shara_ 


Or you can comment here.


Anyway......


My grandmother had surgery last week.  Breast cancer.  They took some lymph nodes, too.


She got the test results today.  It's a rare form of cancer.  It's not aggressive, but they didn't find it quickly.  It has spread.  


She'll need more surgery, chemo and radiation.  She is in her eighties.  They don't think she can handle the chemo.


So if I'm not on a lot, I'm either helping with her, or I have work stuff going on.


Just letting everyone know.  


Edit - updated 1/31/12:


My grandmother had a bout of treatment. The treatment was horrible - side effects are hell - but she's now cancer free. She is still very weak from the aftermath of her treatments, but she's doing well otherwise.