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Sheelos-lover

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So, the roleplay I've been doing with a girl I met on the internet for under eight weeks is currently at 330,000 words.

...

I'm one of those people who always struggled through NaNoWriMo, who couldn't hold a plot together for shit (hello, shameful past on DA and Fanfiction.net), who almost never finished stories.

Well.

I tried writing a regular story recently.  Like, one that I was working on alone.  I didn't really like it.  I liked working with the characters and seeing what their situation was like, but just knowing that everything that happens to them is in my hands makes it seem a little unrealistic.  When you roleplay, you give up control over the situations your character goes through, which is why there's a lot of pressure to make your characters do what they think will be the best option.  You get into one or two people's heads at a time, and you can't control the other characters.  You would never command an entire room for an extended period of time.  That's like playing chess with yourself.

I think my point is, one of the hardest things you can do is roleplay from both sides of a situation.  You can play one person.  Maybe you can play two, if they're on the same side of the situation, or you can describe the actions of one group that generally agrees with itself.  But, how do you roleplay an argument with yourself?  When you write it from one side, you want things to be resolved peacefully, but both sides have a sense of integrity that they're unwilling to compromise.  You can feel your character's pride and you will not budge unless your relationship with the other person is more important than your pride, or new information is presented that changes your position.  When you're writing both sides, it's harder to know exactly what one person is thinking because you have to play the other person, too, so you can't get into either person's head as effectively.

I can write an emotional post where Tara asks Zero how she can trust her father again because she doesn't believe that his opinion of her has shifted as much as he says it did.  Then I go and check my Tumblr and write some lighthearted things back and forth with my Homestuck fan-buddy, see I've gotten a response, read Zero telling Tara some information that I, as a roleplayer, already knew, and be in tears in a moment because I'm back in character.  I never lost Tara's character when I went around being myself; I only put it on hold.  But, to roleplay both sides of a conversation, you need to be all the characters at once, with one or more on hold at any given time.  You don't get to be yourself as you wonder in the back of your mind if things are going to turn out okay; you have to be someone else, which is hard when you're still trying to be the first character.

Believable actions don't come from intellectual thought.  For me, writing believable characters means that I know what they're thinking because I assume their role.  Until I gain real-life omnipotence, I probably won't be doing much more solo writing, though this roleplay gains thousands of words a week and is one of the most fulfilling things I've ever worked on.  So, expect that to end eventually, after which I'll be editing like crazy (I never get bored of reading through it) and I'll probably post to Fanfiction.net or something because DevART doesn't support big word files.
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I've got the gift of one liners
And you've got the curse of curves
And with this gift I compose words
...
I want someone provocative and talkative
But it's so hard when you're shallow as a shower
And from what I've heard with skin you'll win

Could people please stop making videos to this song?  It's obnoxious and insulting.  What, you can't get a girlfriend so you say it's because all the hot ones are stupid?  That's like me saying that all the tall guys with broad shoulders are stupid, when I know very well that they aren't because both of my boyfriends had those very traits.  (Well, still do.  I mean, they didn't go away...)

I have a waist.  And a pair of breasts.  This may come as a surprise to some of you, since apparently it's unusual for someone intelligent to have these traits (my IQ is around 135, btw; my mom was licensed to give IQ tests at one point.)  Never mind that the shape of my body is primarily based on genetics, while IQ is heavily influenced by how you're raised.  I mean, yes, weight factors into the shape of your body, but my mom is very petite and she had even more drastic curves than me when she was young.  And, no matter what I do, I can't get my boobs to be smaller (you lost ten pounds?  Better take all of it from your hips) so let's talk about cultural perceptions that beauty means you get to be dumb.

This is something that people joke about, and it's something that I get pretty paranoid about, like the whole "hot girls will never know if they're interesting" thing which, frankly, makes me not want to go out in attractive shirts.  There were times last year (when I was on boyfriend withdrawal) when I wore a sweatshirt all day so I could pretend I had normal-person proportions.  What's "normal"?  It must be the size of bras that actually exist in stores.  Other days, I would go, "I really want to feel sexy today," so I would put on my uncomfortable bra (my other bras are SO UGLY!!!) and wear a low-cut shirt and feel pretty, and all in all it was a pretty mood-swingy time.

Did it have anything to do with how I'm actually shaped?  Nope!  Oddly enough, that's just like my IQ!  I'd like to point out that I was smart before I hit puberty, and the girl in the song was probably dumb/airheaded/bitchy/whatever before puberty as well.  My intelligence, surprisingly enough, was influenced little, if at all, by the hormonal cocktail that is being a teenager.

So, let's just look at the ridiculous argument the song makes: women come into the world fully formed, with all their post-puberty shaping, and are raised, not by parents, but by their social circles, which are created, not by interests, but by the shapes of people's bodies.  Yep, sounds legit.

Can we just throw this bullshit out?  Please?  You can insult someone for being shallow and petty, but they cannot control the proportions of their bodies.  If people could do that, my bras would cost less than $60.
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A Really Bad Thing happened recently: one part of my life became really fulfilling and amazing.  That would be a good thing except that it's the school year right now.

Harken back to "Addiction" -- sheelos-lover.deviantart.com/j… -- where I discussed what a huge hit of artistic inspiration can do to me.  Well, I've started text roleplaying.  The characters are really good and the plot is really intense and I'll be sitting in class thinking, "So, if Zed's shaman molested her, she would try to hide it because she wants to be accepted into the tribe again.  But what would her father do if he found out?  What would her boyfriend do?"  Turns out that never happened (am disappoint, but that's how it worked) but it was one of my main thoughts for several days, as opposed to, say, "Better study German so I do well on my quiz" or "I need to get my lines memorized for this scene."  I go to dinner at odd times; I sometimes put off showering for a day when I've already stretched my bedtime as far as it will go (me without enough sleep is a very sad sight); I am basically going about this whole "life" thing in the wrong way.

Doesn't matter; had RP.

The problem with anything that makes me feel artistically inspired is that that's what I crave in the first place: artistic inspiration.  As artists, it's assumed that each thing we do, we do on our own: draw a picture or color a picture (or both) or write a story or what have you.  Roleplay is like this crazy, haphazard tag-team effort to get a plot going, and there's a sense that your exclusive character (as opposed to side characters, who can be played by anyone in this RP) is fending for themself.  The other character won't magically do what they want them to; they need to give signals and even ask for help.  Roleplaying has taught me more about good writing than I learned from years of fanfic and attempted original stories.  The obstacles they face are far from arbitrary -- in fact, many of them are internal, coming from the characters' insecurities -- and their determination is what moves the whole thing forward.  They don't chance to come across a nomadic tribe with a spirit-healer (sort of like a psychologist) but they do talk to a tribe they find and learn the former location of a tribe that has one.  Shadow doesn't talk about how protective he wants to be of Hex, but when he gets a stress-induced stomach ache from not talking about it, Hex eventually manages to get him to discuss his low self-esteem issues so they can come up with a plan to fix them.

The whole thing is over 240,000 words to date (after like 5 1/2 weeks; remember how hard NaNoWriMo is?  We're doing about 50,000 words per WEEK.) and has more plot than everything I have ever written combined.  And it all happened easily and naturally because we only had to keep track of the goals of a few characters at a time.  It has given me so many feels; there are scenes that made me cry as I was writing them, and scenes that I had to reread several times just to fully process them.  My partner and I are making up cultures, and while they're based on existing ones, they also have interesting new concepts, like the nomads' "dead-while-living" status which leaves someone out of the reincarnation pool as well as getting them away from anyone they might pose a threat to.  It's more savage than just killing someone; it says that you don't want to have to deal with that person, even as an infant, until you absolutely have to.  It isn't saying, "I hope you reincarnate into a decent person;" it's saying, "People shouldn't have to deal with you for more time than they have to, you terrible, worthless person."  It's the closest thing to Hell that they have and it's fascinating.

I recommend roleplaying to anyone.  It will take up more of your time than you want it to and there will be periods when it upsets you, but it's a more intense experience than you might otherwise be able to find.  Text roleplaying can go very quickly, and you don't have to lose the randomness of tabletop gaming; I actually rolled virtual dice several times to see whether my character was pregnant since I wanted it to be outside of my control.  Keeping track of primarily one character is also a wonderful experience because it's much easier to form well-developed characters when you don't have to make five at once.  There will be times when your partner surprises you and even times when your character surprises you, and you learn to write both to signal what your character is doing and what decision your partner's character can make to make things better or worse for your character -- for example, "Maybe Hex would leave soon.  That would be good; he could calm down on his own, take his time.  He wouldn't have to admit to his problems."  That's true to Shadow's character, and also told my partner that, if her character decided to give Shadow some space, he would make completely different decisions from the ones he would make if Hex stayed.

Overall, when converted to story format, there's a bit more "...he said" and "...she asked" and "...she whispered" than I would prefer, but that's how roleplay works.  Sometimes, your characters need to have conversations.  Often, your characters need to have conversations.  That's the way the story works.  But I've found that, on the whole, roleplaying is one of the best artistic endeavors I've ever tried.

Now, excuse me while I practice music for two to three hours to make up for all the practice I didn't do this week.
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Most people my age consider themselves socially awkward.  Some of us do it despite evidence we would find to the contrary if we didn't just give up when something less than ideal happened.  Some of us have very good reasons for this.

When I was little, my mom had a friend, Angie.  Angie had a daughter my age, Karly.  We lived in the same subdivision.  We were best friends.  When I was five, Karly moved away to the neighboring town (really far away when you're five) and a couple years later she got really into gymnastics and I haven't seen her for years.

Then we come to the friendship gap.  This is the time when, if I decided I wanted to hang out with people, I had to be the proactive one and sometimes I would screw up their friend-group dynamics and it was pretty much like that MLP song "BBBFF," except that I have a sister.  There was also a guy across the street who we played with, but he was kind of a jerk.  The thing that highlights this period, though, is that no one my age wanted to play with me.  Some of them would if I asked, of course.  But no one really sought me out as a playmate.

When I was ten, I became friends with two wonderful girls my age.  We would play pretend and do mildly sports-ish things and it was really awesome because we all wanted to be together.  One of the girls later molested the other one, but fortunately she ended up going to a different school and the one who's still my best friend went to the same schools as me.

But the thing is, when I say I'm socially awkward I mean that I expect that no one wants to hang out with me.  It isn't anyone's fault.  It isn't even a self-esteem issue.  I just expect that people have better things to do than spend time with that weird girl who's going to mess up their friend-group dynamic.  It takes a while for me to not feel like I'm imposing when people are already having their own conversations.

So, status at the end of high school: three BFFs, a boyfriend, and a really awesome wider group of friends.  So I was doing really well and feeling like a normal person, and I was really excited to go to college.  Really, really excited.  That summer, I got my roommate's e-mail address.  We started writing back and forth, and it was great.  She played guitar and I sang and we were going to be awesome friends.  And then I brought up that I'm into gay rights issues and she said, "Nothing personal, but I'm going to talk to Housing Services and get a different roommate."

It doesn't matter that she was kind of a scumbag.  It doesn't matter that we don't see eye-to-eye on a very important issue of human rights.  What she had written meant, "I find your values so morally repulsive that I can't bear to live with you."  And my values are fine.  It's hers that are screwy.  But it still hurt.  What hurt more, though, was coming to college and having a single that was supposed to be a double and feeling like I had failed at the most basic part of being a normal person: making friends.  There was a dance the first week and I was really excited for it, but I suck at normal-person dancing and I didn't know anyone there and I ended up going home in the middle and crying because I felt like I sucked at life.  I have some good friends at college now, and half the people I see seem to know me.  Even know me by name, even though I don't know theirs.  And I still don't want to text my friends and ask them when they're going to dinner (we all went together at 6 every night last year) because, if they haven't texted me, that means I'm imposing.  It must.  Even though that makes no sense.  In reality, objectively, it means I abandoned them as soon as any work was required to go to dinner with them.  But what if I do ruin their friend-group dynamic?  I didn't last year, but this is the fifth week of school.

Anyway, I have a text to send out today.  Probably two.  Wish me luck. :)

Important thing I left out: last semester, I did have a roommate.  She was a freshman transfer student.  Her hobbies were playing frisbee, doing charity work, and not talking to me.  When she came int, the room, I would say "Hello" and she would say nothing.  When she talked to her family about how incredibly lonely she was and I offered to introduce her to my friends over dinner, she turned me down.  I ended up talking to a therapist about it; when I pass her on the sidewalk now, I try to smile at her and she looks away, and I have no idea what I did that made her hate me so much.  There were important things she didn't tell me, too, like when she went home for a weekend so she could celebrate her birthday with her friends and I didn't know if she had stayed over with someone or been hit by a car.  Because I do like people, and I wish the best for people even when they glare at me for giving them a heads-up that they're going to have the room to themself for the next three hours.

My roommate this year is awesome, though.  We're both pretty laid-back and introverted, but we see eye-to-eye with each other and have some really good discussions, which is nice.
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I'm going to start this by saying that this is my opinion.  It seems to be shared by almost no one.

My mother is a psychologist.  She is a doctor.  That's what it means: a doctor for your mind.  So, when I talk about going to see a psychologist because I have some things to work out, I mean it in pretty much the same way I would say that I'm going to the doctor because I don't feel right.  It's like going to the dentist because your teeth hurt, or going to the emergency room because you think you have appendicitis.  You don't have to have a mental breakdown first; that's like getting an ear infection (bear with me; that's my default illness) and waiting until you can't hear to get your ears checked.  It's like waiting a week after you sprain your ankle to get it checked.  Waiting until things get so bad you can't avoid seeking treatment is a very easy way to stay unhealthy.  But people still get so insulted when you say, "Maybe you should talk to a psychologist."

People take it really personally.  They think you're insulting them, like they're supposed to handle every challenge life throws at them with gold-star abilities.  It doesn't matter if what's happening to them is their fault; people get offended because they're supposed to be self-sufficient or some bullshit like that.  It's ridiculous and actually strikes me as extremely self-destructive.

Nobody does that about going to a physician.  No one says, "It was my fault that I fell out of the tree, so I don't need to get my leg checked!" when they break their leg.  No.  They're in pain, so they go to the emergency room.  Given adequate health coverage, people don't wait until they're almost dead to go to the emergency room and get antibiotics; they go to the doctor during normal hours and get their drugs before things get too bad.  And that should be a normal way for people to seek psychological help, too.

Last spring, I had some problems.  Well, one, really.  My roommate didn't talk to me.  I could be as cheerful and pleasant as I liked, and she wouldn't say "hi" after I greeted her and she kind of glared at me whenever I told her I was going out (in a you'll-have-the-room-to-yourself-until-this-time kind of way).  It was very unpleasant.  It made me feel very socially awkward, and feeling socially awkward makes me feel really bad.  It makes me feel like I'm failing at the most important task that's been set before me, which will follow me through the rest of my life.  No one cares how well I do in College Physics or Intro to Economics so long as I don't do terribly.  Being able to talk to people is important for anyone, especially people who want to act.  I felt like I had failed.

It wasn't my fault.  It wasn't anyone's fault (well, maybe my roommate's, but I'm terrible at holding grudges and I don't like her and I'm actually genuinely happy that she has a single room this year because I think having a roommate was too much socializing for her.  And, who knows?  Maybe she had a terrible roommate before she transferred to my school.) but it was hard to deal with.  So I went and I talked to a psychologist and, after three sessions, I felt socially competent and mostly fine.  I got out of the funk I was in.  It wasn't a huge deal; it wasn't ruining my entire life; but getting some help with that problem made my life so much better.

It's part of basic maintenance, the way I see it.  You shower to stay clean; you brush your teeth and go to the dentist to keep your teeth clean; you go to the doctor when you're sick; and you go to a psychologist when you feel crummy mentally.  I would call it dysphoria, but that's a long-term condition that's basically like mild depression.  It doesn't indicate a fault on your part.  It doesn't mean you've failed at something.  It means you have a problem that you can't fix on your own.  That is all.

There are times in everyone's lives when they have problems they can't fix on their own.  We live in a specialized society where the person I pay to fix my car specializes in fixing cars and the person I pay to cut my hair specializes in giving kick-ass hair cuts.  If I have a problem that my friends and my mom can't fix (the psychologist I saw actually said exactly the same things as my mom, but it was different because she didn't raise me) I talk to someone who specializes in helping people with emotional problems.  I never believed that I could do everything in my life myself, and I don't try to.  That would be silly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, this is the one thing that people freak out over.  They take their car in to the shop when it makes weird noises; they see physicians when something goes wrong with their bodies, and they act extremely insulted when you so much as suggest that they might want some help dealing with problems that are sometimes staggeringly enormous and which often don't have solutions.  So you go and you talk to someone, and a good therapist will have some excellent suggestions for you, unlike the ones on TV, who generally don't know what they're doing.

So, don't freak out.  If you're having a problem that's giving you a lot of trouble, just go and talk to someone.  It doesn't mean you've failed somehow.  It means you've succeeded at being aware of what you need, and it means that you're imperfect, just like everyone else in the world.  It means that you're normal and you're brave enough to admit it.
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