AFW Meeting!

So I'm a firm believer in positive reinforcement, so to speak. I believe more in adding good things than removing bad things. I eat clean and I work out, and instead of trying to deprive myself of junk food I just try to indulge in healthy food. Instead of telling myself fast food is bad and I shouldn't eat it, I dived into the culture of healthier food, and filled up my house with fresh food and produce and developed a broad range of good recipes. Now when I eat, I don't think "man I just want fast food but I can't eat it because I'll get fat!" I think "ew, fast food. I'm just going to make a stir fry and a couple spring rolls". It's not no to "this will make me fat" it's yes to "this will make me feel good". I like feeling good.


That's all vaguely related to the topic of the thread, though. I just wanted to see if I could open up a discussion on what people thing is the goal with what they do here. What works, what's good, what approaches to this style of writing are appropriate to the intention.

I'll start off with a couple examples, feel free to share your own personal thoughts.

For me, as a writer who writes one character (occasionally more than one) at a time, the purpose for my writing is to develop and present a character that is believable and interesting, that can play an effective role in both my own story lines and those of others. The goal is not achieved by having my character be the most popular, have the best win record, the most threads, or to fulfill my personal desires at a given moment. It's achieved when the character can't be summed up adequately in a short period of time, when a reader feels things for the character as if she's a person, and when the character plays a meaningful role in a compelling story.

Everything else is in support of that, the mechanics of the site like matches and divisions and titles and all that. The wrestling and competition act is in support of the story and the character, the character is not an accessory to the wrestling.

That's me, I know other people are different. Maybe we could just talk about what we do and why, could be interesting.

I like your style Blue. You've always made an interesting story to follow and it was fun to read.

Honestly, it's a style I would love to "Emulate" AKA: Rip Off of you, but quite frankly I'm far too lazy and un-creative to actually do that.



Honestly, and I know that this is a cop out answer, but I just look to have a good time in my stuff, in a way that lets both my character and the other players character look good in the process. I attempt smaller story stuff here and there, mostly minor changes with sometimes big changes in the mix.


I suppose the reason why I focus on that is because, if I'm having fun with people, like I've had here, I can continue to have fun with them over a longer period of time, eventually getting to know them and branch our conversations out beyond just AFW and such, and soon enough, I'd have made a bona-fide friend. Which is something that I have done here.

So I guess a complete answer would be I do, what I do, for fun, and because it has, and could continue, to allow me to make friends with people.

Also, I love your "healthy food" analogy, as I am again on a diet with this new year, and that's the mindset towards it that I should have.

I've picked up on just how much there is to Taylor just from reading through her last threads, its easy to see theres quite a bit of history behind them and that Taylor is a lot more than just the girl who dislikes hentai wrestling as was my character's impression.

I find myself doing a mixture of both to be honest, focusing on the development of my characters in some threads while others are purely for the fun of just roleplaying out a thread with a character or player who I find interesting, and like with Tai a lot of times this leads to talking about things other than the site and before you know it I found a new friend.

I will openly admit that I ended up with more characters than I ever intended and half of those I have now are just there for fun, meant to be enjoyable characters for other people to play with but I dont have much in the way of involved story lines with them.

But then theres the other half of my characters who are more like close friends to me, their personalities are such that I feel like I've known them for a long time and I work hard to present a very consistent and believable character who people can see as an actual person somewhere, even if it is an overly sexual person.

so in summary id say that while I do love to present fully fleshed out characters with real flaws in stories that develop them even further I am not above letting them just cut loose and enjoy a wild match.

My goal here? Yuri

I know I'm sort of known as the lurker who reads and hardly posts, but I'd like to weigh in since I've been reading this forum for years.

Now that I do RP a bit here, I guess I can talk about my gaols.

In many ways, hentai.

But, I'd like WITH my hentai to create a good story.

Thats what RP ultimately is, it's two or more people trying to create an improvisational story. To me, none of this is competition. I don't CARE if I win for my own ego, I don't care if I loose for my own desires. The winning or loosing is carefully chosen to create a story. In most of my matches, we've had a pretty good idea who would win, who would loose, and how the story would progress to change or augment the charterer's relationships.

That said, there are two ways to jointly create a story. Do it improvisationally, or to decide OOC how you want the story to go, and do it. I like both equally.

That's why the few times I do do an open ended RP, and there's a bit of competition. I get very annoyed if I encounter power playing. Often I don't speak up, because I don't care and I'm just playing to create a story...but it can be annoying if the story is being DRIVEN by someone power playing.

In that instance, that person is FORCING the story to go the way they want, instead of jointly creating a story. So, characters that you simply CANNOT beat become very annoying.


As for rank and tittle, I think they don't mean anything. They don't say one character is "good" or "bad" at wrestling, they are a frame for a story, and don't really matter in the long run. Excessive preoccupation or disagreement over who can have what title, or who deserves it, or who should be allowed to be a high ranked wrestler annoy me.

Surprises, Spots, Titles and the storylines involved with that.

Surprises:
Despite being a wrestling mark, I am greatly bored with matches when I know the winner in advance.

Titles:
I am interested in titles for at least one of my girls as I see that as a goal a wrestler could have in a league where belts are not handed out but won by competition. I also like the Top 10 idea, kind of like the BFG series from TNA on a more permanent scale.

Spots:
Sometimes I entertain a scenario or a series I would like to see like (Blast from the Past or the upcoming Heather Sunderland Revenge Tour 2013) and would like to see how this turns out, so I share the concept with people I would like to see involved in that.

It's always been an IC goal for my characters to hold the title, at least my major ones. OOC, it never has, mostly because I think it'd be a nightmare to be forced to play a match with someone who doesn't understand what their doing or how to do it. Matches rely on mutual trust, and where titles are involved probably the majority involve at least one person refusing to lose and keeping the match going until they win. It's a lot more common now than it was, too, but I personally don't want a title so that I don't have to deal with people treating the match and my character badly for their own personal benefit.

Which leads to my second point, I think rankings and titles should be looked at like a responsibility, less a point of pride. I think it's a bigger load to carry to be high ranked because more is expected of you and the character, the matches should be good, and if your character is high ranked because you're a habitual power player then you've broken the entire game and it no longer functions for anyone. It's a delicate balance.

I always thought it would have been neat to have Taylor land a title, but she was only just coming up to main event status after 2.5 years and I didn't want to try to rush anything or force anything. If she ends up never coming back, I won't be upset for never having done it, due in large part to the above reasons.

[quote="Bluemouse":2mtp3j4c]
I always thought it would have been neat to have Taylor land a title, but she was only just coming up to main event status after 2.5 years and I didn't want to try to rush anything or force anything. If she ends up never coming back, I won't be upset for never having done it, due in large part to the above reasons.