Membership A question regarding self-shipping in rps

[Space_Wolf 0]

Apologizes if this is the wrong place for me to asking this, but I have been looking for a place where I could do some rp. Some of the changes on twitter now make it almost impossible for people to write long sls. Because of some experiences I've had in the past, I decided to self-ship characters (mainly to avoid drama which some people seem to create over them, and to avoid having long term sls disrupted because people leave or become inactive.) I was wondering if it was considered power-playing.

[VirusZero 176]

I'm kind of confused what's going on...

(If I may ask, what is an "sls"? I'm not sure I've heard that term before. Or I may have, except just under another name.)

 

Are you shipping two original characters that you own together? Or are you shipping two canons together? Or a mix of canon and original?

 

If it's two originals then do whatever you want because they are yours.

 

If it's two canons, honestly don't. Write fanfiction, not roleplay, if you want to have certain relationships and dynamics. I mean most people have their favourite ships (I prefer Star Destroyer myself, yes I am aware not THAT kind of ship) and forcing them leads to more problems than they're worth. Now this isn't to say this ship can't happen in roleplay if two players want it... But it should be mutually decided in roleplay. (No one should be pressuring the other!)

 

And, finally, if it's canon and original... nope. I've very rarely ever seen a ship of canon and original that wasn't mary sue/self-insert nonsense. (Can it happen if it develops naturally? again like the two canon situation, sure... but it has to happen in the story because both roleplayers see chemistry between characters and decide to go further.)

[Elena 546]

I am favouring writing several of my characters or characters and NPCs in relationships, some of them adopted after the other partner left. And yes, I recommend it to everyone who wants a stable relationship for their characters, not affected by the possibility that the writing partner vanishes some day.

[Honorem 219]

12 hours ago, Elena said:

I am favouring writing several of my characters or characters and NPCs in relationships, some of them adopted after the other partner left. And yes, I recommend it to everyone who wants a stable relationship for their characters, not affected by the possibility that the writing partner vanishes some day.

Very true. Not only that, but if you want a story to feel a certain way or go a certain way (ultra specific), then often posting with yourself is the best option. Had times when I discussed plans with an old RP buddy before they took on a character, turns out they had far different plans for how it ended up. So the better option was to just do it yourself. Whether that's fortunate or unfortunate, who knows. I don't see anything wrong with it either.

[Varos 0]

I'll be honest, roleplaying to me has always felt like an activity that you do with others. I can totally understand the want to self-ship, but I consider that just writing a story: be it fanfiction, or original, it's only you, which to me doesn't count as roleplay. 

 

I mean, I suppose you could ship your characters, because you also want them to interact with other roleplayers, and it's a personal choice, so that's up to you, but then you are missing out on the thrill of not knowing absolutely everything, like you do in a story. Isn't that what roleplaying is for, to create things with others?

 

But no, that is not powerplaying. Powerplaying is controlling someone else's character, if they are both yours and the site allows you to post with yourself, I see no broken rules.

[Elena 546]

11 hours ago, Varos said:

I'll be honest, roleplaying to me has always felt like an activity that you do with others.

 

I mean, I suppose you could ship your characters, because you also want them to interact with other roleplayers, and it's a personal choice, so that's up to you, but then you are missing out on the thrill of not knowing absolutely everything, like you do in a story. Isn't that what roleplaying is for, to create things with others?

 

Yes, but you can create things with others and write with others even if two characters of yours are in love. They have family, friends, enemies, work mates, they will need advice and help in their relationship, there might be people wanting to break them up... So yes, roleplaying is an activity you do with others, but it doesn't mean your characters can't interact and be related in a way or another. Because, on the other side, people come and go, and if you care for your story, you don't want it halted just because.

[Cardea 0]

On 10/2/2016 at 4:11 AM, Varos said:

I'll be honest, roleplaying to me has always felt like an activity that you do with others. I can totally understand the want to self-ship, but I consider that just writing a story: be it fanfiction, or original, it's only you, which to me doesn't count as roleplay. 

 

I mean, I suppose you could ship your characters, because you also want them to interact with other roleplayers, and it's a personal choice, so that's up to you, but then you are missing out on the thrill of not knowing absolutely everything, like you do in a story. Isn't that what roleplaying is for, to create things with others?

 

 

I kinda disagree?  My two characters that I ship started off as a kind of fanficcy spin off thing, but then I decided to add it to their actual plot because they both have lives outside of each other and that still affects their relationship.  Also, one of them's poly so they both have to navigate interaction with his other partner. 

 

I guess it depends on how you define a relationship, in a sense.

[Varos 0]

I feel like people missed the part where I said that self-shipping  is ' a personal choice, so that's up to you '. I was explaining why I do not self-ship, I have nothing against if you do it. I just, personally, prefer not doing it as I find not having everything predicted more fun.

[Space_Wolf 0]

My decision to self-ship characters arose out of a situation were people were dishonest with me and I don't want to put myself in that situation again. I don't see a problem with self-shipping an OC and a canon being together because it largely depends on how well people write as to how well it works.

 

I wouldn't do canon-canon because I consider it a form of power-play. The reason why that is is we had a writer who pretended to be two different writers who had control of a set of very powerful characters and they messed around with other people's characters so that story-lines would go the way they wanted it to go. They weren't romantic ships, but they did rp the characters where they were connected with each other instead of having them being separate, and they did so in away which allowed to control other people's characters - I do have a Kili and a Fili, but they don't interact with each other, and are not part of the same story-line.  (It's not self-shipping which is a problem in itself, but when people try to hide it, and/or use powerful characters to do it.) It is possible that you could self ship canons together without the rp becoming skewed but it would need to happen in a large group of rpers and not prevent other people from developing their characters. I would be weary of anyone who did that.

 

I don't look at self-insertion as I used to - it all depends on how many 'Mary-Sue' character traits that a character as as to whether it works or not, and every character you come across, OC or Canon will have some combination of them. Some traits that are considered 'Mary-Sue' traits are a part of the character's background, and without them, you wouldn't have a story.

 

I don't entirely like shelf-shipping because it can stop other people developing their characters, but this can also happen when you get cliques forming and they deliberately exclude certain people, and the effect is far worse in the latter.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Space_Wolf

[Elena 546]

2 hours ago, Space_Wolf said:

I don't entirely like shelf-shipping because it can stop other people developing their characters, but this can also happen when you get cliques forming and they deliberately exclude certain people, and the effect is far worse in the latter.

 

Why do you think it can stop other people developing their characters? Because all the characters interact together, a character doesn't interact only with a spouse/ beloved.

[Josie 198]

I do not see an issue in playing both characters in one romantic relationship. This in and of itself is not a bad thing and does no harm to anyone. Some people might think it's a little strange, but it has no impact on them whatsoever and so blah.

 

However! It can become a potential problem if the person is only playing with their own characters and is not writing with anyone else. There's more to roleplaying than just shipping, and I personally think of roleplaying as a group activity, so if you are uninterested in writing with others in your group then you... shouldn't be writing on a forum to begin with?

 

I suppose the only other way this could become a problem is if the site's concept is based around shipping, but in that case it seems like the fun in it is being in a ship with another person's character...? So I don't understand why one would join a site based around shipping if they didn't want to ship their characters with other players' characters.

[Dusty 55]

I need some clarification here. Are we talking about "romantic relationships" here or plotting in general?

 

If it is just interacting in some way with other characters, I tend to call it plotting rather than shipping. Plotting can be anything from literally bumping into someone in a place both characters would go, to intricate storylines that can go on for a long time with their own timeslines etc.

 

I'm definitely not a fan of "instant" romances just because someone suggested it on my plotter on the first day after having their app approved. Those kind of character storylines take time and sometimes can come from the most unexpected of places. Characters I never thought would have a relationship organically ended up in one. I have also had ones that developed from answering a want ad too. So there are lots of ways. I've also played with a writing partner that had two characters that were married, and I myself have had two characters that were married, e.g the parents of a character I also own or a character I didn't want to have available until much later.

 

The only thing I would find a drawback to only writing with my own characters or only pairing them up with each other is all the great threads I've had with other characters over the years. Some people will flake on you, some will let you down and RL will always put a spanner in the works on a regular basis but I don't like to close the doors on anything without at least giving it a look and a good bit of thought first

 

 

Edited December 2, 2016 by Dusty
typo

[Morrigan 1,826]

I play two of my own "ships" all the time. I tend to play some of my characters siblings a lot. Really it's like taking a character and making an NPC of them technically. You can, of course, play them separately, but all in all they have the relationship that you produce.

 

I'm currently playing out my character's that are twins as completely separate characters on a site. I've NPCed spouses etc. It all depends on what you want to get out of the characters in the end if I'm honest.

[Ferret 1]

For me, roleplay is something to do with another person, and not with yourself. I grew up on and am accustomed to sites where roleplaying with yourself was not a thing, and it's only recently that I have been a part of one where that started to become a trend. To me it seemed awkward at best, and it's not something I would do. None of these sites also made much use of NPCs, so for me roleplay has always between your character and someone else's. Just what I am used to.

[xexes 108]

@Space_Wolf Given what you have said, I would say that this is not a healthy behavior for you. You are going through all this trouble because of what a bad person did and the wound they left.

 

Your story is incredible because of the many, many red flags that arose before the situation was handled. A thing like this that hurts someone so badly that they no longer wish to roleplay romantically (an intimate thing!) is truly a shame.

 

Trust is a vital part of every day life, and integral to roleplaying. I highly encourage you to heal. Instead of isolating yourself in a sharing environment, I would encourage you to let the romance or said characters rest until you feel better about things and about yourself. I would also encourage you to seek comfort and camaraderie from the friends you have there who were also hurt by this person.

 

When you feel better, you should be feeling more adventurous and capable, and handling something like a plot going badly should be as simple as privately saying "thanks but no thanks".