Fuck Yeah Roleplaying Advice!

I think they meant that they reblog their own post, thus pushing it back to the top of the Tumblr dashboard, or “bumping it up”. :)

You can bump on other forums other than Tumblr, too - on forums like Gaia online, you can add a new post to your current thread, thus causing the thread to push up to the top of the list of current threads, and on Proboards, you can do the same thing, or if you’re an administrator, you can just “nudge” the thread, causing it to bump into the Most Recent Posts without actually having to post in it and muddy the current thread.  (But I’m pretty sure they were talking about Tumblr.)

Hope this helps! :)

Bumping your posts to make sure people see them is absolutely not pushy, and you have no reason whatsoever to feel badly about what you’re doing!  Your partner committed to be in this roleplay with you, and for her character to be in this relationship with your character, so it’s her prerogative to keep up her end of the bargain, or let you know if there is some reason why she is unable/unwilling to do so.  Unfortunately, as was addressed in an earlier Ask, a lot of roleplayers are too shy to simply come forward if there is a pressing issue, and so, as much as it stinks, you may have to be the one to go to your partner directly and ask her why she seems hesitant to pursue these two characters’ story.

I have been in your shoes once before – I was previously in a roleplay where my character was in a relationship with another character and for a while my partner was easily balancing our characters’ relationship with another player’s posts, but then, after a while, the interactions between our characters dried up.  When I asked why, I learned that though my partner had tried to make the relationship between my character and hers work, she simply was not as interested in their relationship as she was in the relationship between her character and this other player’s character.  Rather than causing OOC drama, this allowed my partner and I to genially alter our characters’ relationship into lots of high-intensity IC drama, which gave us so much more to work with than continuing to try to silently fit a square romantic peg into a round aromantic hole.

Asking her about it directly may open up an opportunity for her to get something off her chest that has been bothering her about their relationship; or she may tell you that she has no issue with the relationship whatsoever and simply loses your posts because she has a tough time keeping track of things, what with several members in the group; or maybe she did not realize you were so concerned with that relationship/did not know how much you liked the characters’ relationship, so she did not take it as seriously as she might otherwise have; or perhaps even that she likes your characters’ relationship best and so does not want to rush on a response, and so responds slower to your posts because she wants to really think about her response.  The possibilities are endless, but you’ll never know which is the real answer until you ask!

Whatever the answer, don’t fret, even if it winds up with your characters splitting up.  There are always more fish in the sea, or more opportunities to plot these two characters getting back together!  Throwing a wrench into the equation is sometimes exactly what a roleplay needs.  If you hit a speedbump, just work together to get over it – and make sure to always have fun, no matter what you do! :)

Well, certainly more than an hour, silly!

I wouldn’t start worrying like you are until at least a week had passed with no attention.  You just have to get your RP out there, and people will come!  Advertise your RP to anybody who will listen, anybody who you think might be interested in the subject matter, anybody who is willing to advertise it for you to hopefully get it to more interested parties even if they are not specifically interested in roleplaying the subject matter, themselves.

Stop worrying, and start working to get your RP out there - remember, no pain, no gain - and eventually your hard work will pay off in fun! :)

Absolutely!  The less they give you to work with, the more you get to make up for yourself, which gives you that much more freedom to form the character to your liking, to be more comfortable for you to play – and that much less of an opportunity for someone who thinks they know better than you to call you out on “playing the character wrong”.  Think of it as making your own original character with reservations – you have been given a bit of information and a list of things the character would not do, but that gives you a universe of things the character can do, not to mention character quirks, psychology, and a number of other things that are entirely up to you to pick and develop.

Have fun!  Play around with your character!  If you have read fics or seen other RP accounts doing some things with the character that you like and would want to fit into your interpretation as well, feel free to do so, but also know that just because somebody else (who is not the original author/creator) has written the character a certain way before, that does not mean you are obligated to write the character that way, yourself.  For example, I always play Clint Barton as a smoker, and while I have never met another Hawkeye account that does that, neither have I ever come across anyone criticizing the fact that I play the character that way, because, although Marvel has never specified him as a smoker, neither have they ever specified him as being a non-smoker.

When dealing with a character with little concrete development to begin with, the world is your playground.  If you’ve always wanted to try something with a character and you think that this character would be a good place to test it out, go for it!  If you’ve never played a gambler, now might be the time.  Want to make the character a parent?  Do it.  Think about it this way: it’s up to you how close to canon you want to play your character (if the character is canon to begin with).  It’s your roleplay, and roleplays almost exclusively exist in alternate universes or timelines from the source material (clearly, or else the events of the roleplay might very well clash with the events of the original text).

So in short, to answer your question, yes, it is possible – and a lot of fun.  So go ahead and go for it, and have some fun! :)

• Decide on a name.  Is her name going to be Joan, like Lucy Liu’s character in Elementary?  Or are you going to go a different route altogether, and call her something like Joanna, Josephine, or even just Watson, with no first name specified?  This is important, and can build character (or be turned into a wink-wink running joke, i.e., does Watson even have a first name at all?  Who will be the first to make her slip up and tell them?).
  
  
• Decide what aspects of male John Watson’s personality are going to be incorporated into femme John Watson’s personality, and which aspects of your character’s personality are going to be entirely your own decision/creation.  Remember, women are different from men, so her personality would not necessarily line up directly with her male counterpart’s (i.e., does femme Watson have a different view on work ethic, women’s roles, or even on Sherlock than her male counterpart?  How does femme Watson act during “that time of the month”?  Clearly we would never see male Watson acting this same way because he never had reason to).
  
  
• Pick your playby!  Or, don’t pick your playby, this step is optional.  Not every character requires a playby.  If you just want to describe your character – or leave her appearance up to the imagination of your partner – that’s your initiative!  But you should have at least a basic idea of what your character is going to look like (not necessarily face-wise, but at least height- and weight-wise), so that you can know the boundaries of what she can or cannot do, in the course of the roleplay, judging by her physical limitations – for example, a short femme John Watson would not be able to reach tall shelves the same way a tall femme John Watson might, which would make you have to then write her getting something to stand on, or, alternatively, if she is taller than femme Sherlock (if there is one), then she might be the one getting things off of tall shelves for her companion!
  
  
• Make a new Tumblr account and decide on a name that people would be able to easily recognize as being associated with your character.  For example, ladywatson is a lot more recognizable as a Watson RP account than something like withoutmustache (though of course you don’t have to be quite so straightforward and stuffy with your account name – have fun!).  If there’s a quote you think will be recognized by others in the same fandom, you can use that in her username, or if there’s a witty way you can describe her line of work that would be recognized by others in your fandom, feel free to do that.  Just beware being too witty, or you might lose some people! ;)
  
  
• Go forth and find other roleplay blogs in your fandom, especially independent ones, and make the first move!  Contact them, let them know you’re there and wanting to play!  Eventually others will see your name on these established accounts and will come to you to roleplay, and you can expand your repertoire from there! :)

I hope this helped, if only a little!

A similar question was answered here (but of course you would apply it to whatever subject matter your own roleplay is).  Long story short: be shameless (with reservations)! :)

Let’s break your question down into parts to more easily answer each bit!:

How do you talk to other people?: How do you talk to other people normally?  People on Tumblr are still people, of course!  Just talk to them the way you would talk to somebody you were approaching in chemistry class to ask if they would like to be your lab partner.  It’s almost the same thing – you’re two people working together to create something that neither of you could have created alone, and that will benefit both of you (and if you get it right, you produce great chemistry!). ;)

How do you write a para?: Do you like to write fanfiction?  Do you like to write original works?  A lot of roleplayers I know enjoy doing writing on their own time as well as the kind of writing they do in roleplay.  Just take what you know from that, and apply it to your roleplay, keeping in mind that you only control one of the characters, not all of them, so you can only write out the actions of your character.  However, this does not mean that you should only react to what your partner has said – it’s as much your responsibility as it is theirs to move the plot along!

If they give you a little, give them a little more.  It’s up to the two of you to get Dorothy and the Tin Man to the Emerald City, and you can’t do that if you’re both still stuck describing a picnic that’s been going on for the last three days!  One of you has to find the ants on their sandwich and decide it’s time to pack up and go, and if it seems like your partner isn’t going to be doing it anytime soon, then it’s up to you to bring the thunder, or the ants, or whatever it is that finally gets Dorothy and her little dog, too, up and going again.

Sometimes you can do this with one paragraph, sometimes it takes several.  The more you write, the more you’ll be able to decide whether a response needs to be longer or shorter.  It takes practice to be able to do both, though, so don’t be discouraged if for a long while you can only do short para responses, or only long ones!  Lord knows I’ve been struggling to cut down on the length of my responses – for a long time my poor Tumblr partners had to snooze through novellas to get to the point of my posts!  Practice makes… well, not perfect, admittedly, but better! ;)

How do you do everything?: Well, first you need three large eggs, a cup of water, and a cup of cooking oil… or did you want to learn about Olympic ice skating first?  I’m just kidding, but like any skill you pick up in life, roleplay takes a little bit of courage and a lot of practice, but eventually it will feel completely natural!  Just go for it!  Your first couple of roleplays will probably be shaky as all getout, but isn’t that how everything is?  My first violin lesson sounded like dying seagulls, but I kept playing anyway, and now I teach!  Just GO FOR IT – what’s the worst that could happen?  You learn from your mistakes, and then you come back and do it again, better than ever!

And who knows, you might even make some great roleplaying friends along the way. :)

I have never watched Once Upon a Time, though several people tell me it’s a great show – however, I bet there are some people here at FYRA who know exactly how to answer this question!

COMMUNITY: Any advice for Anonymous on tips for playing the Mad Hatter from OUAT? :)

With great caution! ;)

I jest.  However, there is a note of truth to that.  Don’t forget the famous Uncle Ben quote: “With great power comes great responsibility”.  It’s your responsibility to not let your character’s power become too overwhelmingly out of control, or let his temper become his whole personality.  Making a character whose whole existence is based purely around his bad temper and powerful power without taking special care to flesh him out otherwise will quickly turn him into a caricature, like what somebody who has never watched Dragon Ball Z and knows nothing about the personalities of the individual characters might think about the Sayans.  (They would seem a bit silly to the uninformed, wouldn’t they?)

A character with a quick temper has a great opportunity to grow as an individual, provided you take into consideration that his temper is his weakness, not something that bolsters his strength or something positive about his character.  People have to walk on eggshells around someone with the propensity to blow their lid at any given moment, and eventually, if he keeps it up, nobody would realistically want to spend time around him at all.  What is he doing to try to keep his temper under control?  Is he making that effort, or is he simply barrelling through life with the “if you don’t like it, get out of my way” mentality that a lot of underdeveloped characters, unfortunately, tend to carry around with them?

Another thing to consider is, does his power directly connect to his temper?  I, myself, have a character with a fiery temper and a strong power, and the two are directly connected, which means that when he loses his temper, it has disastrous results, which gives him more motivation to keep his temper in check.  What is your character’s motivation to keep his temper in check?  What exactly sets off his temper in the first place, and is there any possibility that he might be able to develop as a character to try to work through whatever it is that gets him worked up?  Does he have a tendency to abuse his power when he is angry, and does he feel guilty about using his power when angry, afterward?

This does not mean, at all, that your character should never lose his temper, or abuse his power, whether the two instances are connected or not!  People make mistakes, and human (or, mutant, as the case may be) error is a part of growing up and developing as a character.  Just make sure that if he does lose his temper, there are comparable consequences.  Too many times I’ve seen a character lose their temper or abuse their power and not even receive a slap on the wrist for it because “she can’t help it, she’s too powerful/so angry/a klutz/it’s who she is”.  If I or you or anyone else were to blow up a city block, we would definitely not get off with an “oh you silly mutant” and a good-natured shake of the head.

Even if your character is a villain, you don’t want to turn him into a gravel-chomping parody of a more fully-developed version of himself (unless you do, but judging from your question, I take it that you don’t).  Where does his anger stem from?  Is somebody else abusing his tendency to blow his lid for their own gain?  Is the fact that he has a short temper just a halfway crutch that makes it easier for him/you to abuse his powerful power?  Try taking away his powerful power for a bit, and see how he reacts – and how it makes him feel about his temper after he realizes just how ineffective he is when all he can do is throw a tantrum without the ability to punch through a wall, or… whatever his power is.

Experiment!  Mess with him!  Throw him some curveballs and see how he comes out in the end.  You might just be surprised by his development (or he may stubbornly resist development – some headstrong characters do – in which case you simply have to switch tactics on him).  You control him, not the other way around!

And don’t forget the most important part of roleplaying – just have fun. :)