This happens to me all the time! I am wondering if anyone else had the same experience?

Be back later; it’s nearly 1:00 a.m. on the West Coast.

I distinctly remember the first time I felt so overwhelmingly out of my comfort zone in the RP here on SS and that came the first time I was asked to play a red account character for the RP. Right now, I honestly can't even remember which RP area it was for or what the character even was (haha maybe I blocked it out) but I remember being so stressed about making sure to do everything I could to make my RP style read so much NOT me that it was an almost out of body experience whenever I was typing. It was like I was looking down at myself and not...really myself? And I was basically Joey from FRIENDS when he gets a hold of a Thesaurus - disasterous.



Basically, I was overthinking the entire process and that in turn made me not really enjoy what I was doing. RPing the character became almost a chore and it exhausted my mind and caused my creativity to shrivel while I tried SO hard to....not RP like me. I was a noob, okay?

After, I was super hesitant about volunteering for red accounts when opportunities arose and shied away when I was asked if I was interested in taking on one. There wasn't really any one thing I did that helped me over this hurtle other than I kept playing. Playing and stalking other RPers. I was still SO SO SO very green to the whole RP experience in general - SS was my very first RP ever - and had only ever had one character voice speaking to me in my head at the time. Once my mind began filling with possibilities and becoming inspired for more voices because my own creativity was becoming more flexible, things changed and it no longer felt so daunting. I had a better perspective on language and RPing in general.

There were a lot of factors working against me in this situation, but a few things I took from the whole experience were as follows:

• overthinking stifles creativity
• forcing yourself into the wrong shaped peg and muting your own unique and special writing perspective makes RPing just not fun
• it's okay to have your own style, embrace it!
• RPing is supposed to be fun and not a chore
• slow down and take a moment to look outside of your own RPing and read others; you gain so much from this. SO MUCH

The main thing I fall back into but try to avoid is splitposting. Like when your characters are having 20 conversations at once somehow, it kind of messed with the flow of time, but actually it was how I first learned to rp. I find an RP is more organic when this is avoided. Its more common in RPs that have high minimum word counts for posts though, I think, which shows sometimes having rules for things like that can impact your output substantially.

Edit: i submitted before I was done

This was out of my comfort zone because it took some pretty big adjustment to start minimising the splitting. I felt guilty any time I didn't reply to certain parts of another person's post (and if i did thoroughly it would split things even MORE). It took me a while to figure out where the line is for me and while some splitposting is just the nature of the beast, I'm far more comfortable than I was about making the call to tighten things up again in my replies.

When i was trying to think of a different discussion on how my RPing has changed, I couldn't come up with much so i came in here to have something to say on here and read THIS.

I think I'm still not quite comfortable in the smooth flow and I've been RPing now for almost 12 years ???? (WHAT???) I definitely find the splitposting to be almost like a security blanket for me and I think I've dabbled in not doing that (group spoilers are helpful for retraining) but it's hard too.


Something else that has definitely helped in stepping out of the comfort zone is resorting to a new house. Even before I did so for the school, I had shopkeepers and Ministry characters who were in different houses, but it was different to when they were in a different house at school. And my first SS house wasn't even MY house. But besides the fact that you're forced to sort of think a little more on their personalities and histories and characteristics, you're also forced to interact with new housemates who you might not have had that chance before and thus growth occurs.

All. The. Time.

But it comes in certain situations or plots. I find it a little uncomfortable when I RP a character that doesn't share my beliefs and then the character has to defend their beliefs (which I disagree to) and that sort of thing. It doesn't happen that drastically often, but I've done it! This teaches me to be flexible and understanding in real life, too, which I wasn't expecting from RPing.

OMGee, this is almost exactly the same experience I had with red accounts! When I started out, I had the same problem with trying too hard to change my writing style so people wouldn’t guess it was me playing, but it eventually got to the point that no matter how hard I tried, my own style would come through, so I stopped trying to hide it. Another problem I’ve had with the red accounts is playing the Harry Potter canon characters (the ghosts, Peeves, creature accounts, etc.). There’s already an expectation of how they’re supposed to act, and I’d get so wrapped up in sticking to canon that it was impossible to put my own spin on them. To this day, I don’t particularly enjoy playing red accounts (unless it’s a charrie that I had some hand in creating), but I try to put those feelings aside as much as possible.

I think my struggle with red accounts goes back to a much bigger problem I have stepping outside my comfort zone. I already touched on this in another thread, but I can’t play a charrie I don’t relate to! One thing I’ve tried is looking at those charries from a different perspective. Sometimes that helps me find something relatable about them; sometimes it doesn't. When that doesn’t work, the charrie never sticks. I find when I try to force myself to play somebody I don’t understand, the quality of my writing suffers. Those posts tend to be much shorter, and I feel the charries’ thoughts and emotions don’t ring true. Then I get annoyed with myself for not posting my best work, and it’s a mess.

I’m not sure I’m the right person to offer advice since it’s something I still struggle with, but one thing I’ve learned from my experience is don’t try to force yourself into something that doesn’t feel right. RPing isn’t and shouldn’t be a competition to see who can jump the farthest outside one’s comfort zone the fastest. If you feel ready to make that step, that’s great! If you don't, that’s okay too. You’ll get there in time; just be patient with yourself and keep trying.

Splitposting.... is that what we're calling it these days? that is a nice thing to avoid. You just have to be more patient and take more turns, I guess?

It's funny that Pixie mentioned the red accounts because i looked forward to those every term and probably over-used them when I was an admin. but they're so FUN. I was always flattered when someone thought one of my red accounts was being played by Ern or Touz. I just thought I was doing a good job of trying a different writing style.

For me, male characters have always been harder to RP. I can create great dialogue and elaborate backstories for them, and they're easier to write when they're students, but I feel like their paths eventually end in a romantic way, full of fantasy. I worry that they're earlier for me to stereotype, since I'm writing them with a woman's perspective. Meh.