I never play in IMs or private with people whom are strangers to my character.

 

Most of AOL's RP problems come from the idea that 'Hey, if you build it, they will come'. 

 

"If I make a slave, and put her in an IM RP chat.. I'll get a Mistress!"

 

"If I make a Master, and put her in an IM RP chat.. I'll get a Slave!"

 

"If I IM this person and tell them about my amazing character, they'll RP with me."

 

This is entitled, and non-dynamic thinking. You have to understand that everyone has their own preferences, and IM RP with a stranger is like blind dating. Most of the people whom actively engage in it want to get laid.. and if you don't want to have sex it can get very awkward, very quickly.

 

A lot of people have a lot of views on their personal preferences with regards to sexuality, roleplaying, and AOL's RP community. 'It's Dead' is an excuse a lot of people make, or 'I prefer IM RP and will never play in public'.. but the thing is? I don't RP for intimacy. I RP to observe the human condition ... the emotion and desperation, the discomfort and enjoyment of overcoming adversity. I don't roleplay to socialize with hot elves at a bar while wearing elf-ears or demon horns.

 

Every story, TV show, lesson in school, sexual encounter, movie, book, and recorded moment in history is about one of two things:

 

1) Conflict and Conflict Resolution.

 

2) The memory of those whom have engaged in Conflict and Conflict resolution.

 

If I'm RPing 20 minutes of my character's life? I'm RPing in such a way that gets shit she cares about done. I RP to do things that as an author, and as a reader ... other people looking in on, might go: "Oh, interesting." And then? Further? I let them get involved, or go out of my way to pursue them to get them involved ... because every goal my character has? Can only be completed by speaking with or acting upon (consensually or non-consensually) other players characters. My characters have no goals that can be accomplished using just NPCs.

 

Most people don't seem to understand that it's precisely the "elitist's did it" thinking that "killed" it.

 

You, like a mature, responsible adult, have to take responsibility for your immediate surroundings.  Your house is not a mess because your children messed it up ... your house is a mess because out of all the other things you do in life, you did not prioritize cleaning it and teaching others whom live their to clean it.

 

It wasn't "elitists" that killed AOL RP.

 

It was every time you put up a barrier to people being allowed to roleplay with you.

 

"I'm sorry, I don't RP with men / women / submissives / dominants / good / evil" even when you have absolutely nothing better to do with your time. Or every time you create a 2 dimensional character who can only fit in RP with a single arch-type, to find your "quick fix" at the cost of dynamics. 'I'm looking for a Mistress'..

 

Or using 'mun-consent' to side-step the consequences of your own actions ... flirting with a monster, or a slaver. Or stealing from a noble whom may want to have your hand cut off for the crime. It's a logical thing -- but people will continue to cut off perfectly valuable, and emotional RP directions without even the slightest bit of hesitation.

 

I take it on myself to go out of my way to manipulate players into doing things that are healthy for the the RP community and the interests of the majority, to involve them with something that creates IC drama with as many players as possible.

 

Tragedy is part of what is important about developing a character.

 

Let me tell you, I have NO ... INTEREST ... in roleplaying with anyone whom only keeps RP partners of the gender(s) they are sexually attracted to. Let me repeat that to you on no uncertain terms: If you will not roleplay with people whom you do not plan to have sex with ... then I want nothing to do with you.

 

Even if your character is shallow .. that doesn't mean your character has a right to only be in the presence of people they want to be in the presence of.. and if you RP the Emperor of the World ... then we probably need to have a talk about your depth of character.

 

I, unlike so many people whom sit in an IM RP chatroom, on a new screen name ... trying to scam people into thinking I'm a new person in a community that's barely had new blood in years ... I give a damn about people's preferences that do not match my own. If you can do this? Then the community comes back. I've proven that, with public play, in a very short time. None of my RP friends joined me initially in this -- and I had RP every single night, two or three times a day. And it was glorious. My character made friends, and enemies, and storylines that are still going months later.

 

So stop trying to roll the hard seven with a single person.

 

What you need to understand? Is that all the things that make me attractive to you.. are likely going to be the things that would make you attractive to me. A webpage, some music, and a player whom goes out of their way to make themselves compatible with a large number of people who do not fit their personal interests -- who can be either an antagonist, or a protagonist.

 

One of the largest crimes people commit ... is making ideas they feel will make them super compatible with a single person ... "I'm going to be a slave, so the drow will own me!" And then? They have only *one* RP connection. And their RP flounders and dies unless that individual spends all their time RPing with that person when they are online.

 

"She's a bred slave." So ... how does this make your character an interesting person? Is this an excuse not to develop an RP history in which your character was an active participant in their own fate, with a life full of compromise and adversity that human beings deal with as part of their personal development? You're saying your character has no life connections, or biological family? This is a short-cut people use that says: "Please feed me RP content, Mistress!".. and it's usually both lame and transparent. Develop a character that is interesting and dynamic as a free person, and I'll show you a character that would be interesting and dynamic as a slave.

 

"She loves and lives for her Mistress." Why? What did they go through together that developed this bond? "... because she's the one person feeding you RP content? Seriously. I've made this same mistake that others make. I'm not judging or rejecting people that do this -- I have characters whom have been seduced out of freedom into submission they enjoy.. but going from a traded article without an owner from being a person is... cheap. A slave is a person who is owned. If your character is not owned, they are not a slave. And if your character loves their owner -- even if that owner is a cruel, capricious drow ... we need to have a talk about what you're bringing to the story.

 

"She's never been free." This is a cop-out. This is a way people enforce their lack of willingness to bring content, independantly to a story. Slavery is not the defining trait of a character ... it's over-obsessed. I assure you, your slave character would be much, much deeper if she was The Baker's daughter in the castle kitchens ... a slave, like her father and/or mother whom grews up like a normal child learning a function.

 

People make this same mistake with: "She's a noble's daughter". In a fantasy world where women warriors while not common, are certainly not burned at the stake.. you have to believe that a noble's child does not spend her whole life sitting on a pillow. She is learning to ride horses, she is learning to negotiate, read, write, and make the hard decisions of an administrator whom -- if not going to be in a leadership position herself ... will find herself in a leadership position if her husband is called off to war. And in real life? Peasant Rebellions happened every other generation, in every single country throughout the entire feudal era ... from Europe to Japan -- all six to seven hundred years of it.

 

A noble's daughter whom has matured to womanhood would be prepared, at least superficially for all kinds of things players in RP never give their 17 - 22 year-old "noble's daughter" any credit for in an effort to make another absolutely effortless character to get led around by the nose in someone else's story.

 

"One of my most popular characters ever was a Noble's Daughter. Gwendolyne Julia Rosehand -- she was a Knight and a Paladin; a Cavalier, and she hated slavery, even though it was legal in the city. I played her for weeks as the antagonist to a 'Mistress Jezebel'. My character, the first time she laid eyes on the half-drow slave Mistress was standing outside of the cast-iron fence to the slave market, with her boot set agains the bottom rung -- gripping the bars. And when they made eye contact? Gwen narrowed her eyes, pucked her lips and made a kissy face: "Yeah, I'm here, bitch." -- You see, while slavery was legal? Gwendolyne was spying on them from a distance, where they could see her.. keeping any out for kidnapping, or other illegal dealings that she could use to punish them. Eventually, Jezebel kidnapped her, and broke her down ... and Gwendolyne developed stockholmes syndrome.. while eventually freed by negotiations due to her status? She always believed she loved Jezebel ... and that Jezebel loved her but didn't know how to show it.. Gwendolyne, recently died of old age ... but she was, by far, my most popular submissive character ever and I played her actively for over 6 years. 

 

Gwen was never an amazing fighter. She had no practical life experience, but she ment well, and while trained in combat, and the wearing of armor.. she was an administrator, and a politician whom spoke out against slavery, even though none of the other nobles would listen to her. She was not helpess -- but when sorely pressed? She would always bend. Gwendolyne was almost six feet in height, willowy and slender.. and I'm told she was one of my sexiest characters ever.

 

She was a devoute supplicant of the Goddess Sune, the Goddess of Love, Beauty, and Courtly Romance.. she had a life, and friends, and NPC servants with names. She owned a small village she cared about. She was a good person, but she looked down on, and pittied commoners -- she was unintentionally a snob; but she ment well.

 

This is all because she could take initiative .. and would, given half an opportunity, steal initiative from soneone else; because even though she wasn't good at things? She'd try them without being prompted. She had her own hopes, dreams, and goals that were independant of my desire to see her in a slave collar."

 

All of these things I mentioned earlier are excuses to create a character that cannot function on their own and to latch onto a single person, to drag them into intimate control of your destiny. All these are excuses to not have a history and NOT make a realistic person. It means your character has no control, has no preferences -- or worse, has no preferences that matter -- and this gets even worse when the OOC player whom creates no content of interaction ... goes further to place OOC limitations and OOC directions on stories other player's characters are leading while having no goals they can work toward on their own -- and they're constantly waiting for someone else to drive their story for them.

 

If you're a "mercenary" without a player employer ... if you're a "warrior" whom never runs out of coins .. or an assassin ... most of these things I've said still apply and these and other characters, whom in and of themselves, create no content... no intrigue, no trouble and have no real politics and is defined only by their job popularized by media ... then you are doing nothing but asking for myself, and others to feed you. I will not reject you; ever. I don't work like that ... but I will go out of my way to entangle you with other players in ways that will make you uncomfortable, by calling your character's loyalties, creativity, and lack of direction into question in negative ways.

 

If you play a character that lacks convictions? Expect me to lean pretty hard. If you're a person whom can thrive on adversity?

 

We'll enjoy ourselves.

 

Very Respectfully,

  - The Dominant Drowess