god DAMN, guys, I know everyone has seen that hilarious caliborn-trying-to-rp and dirk responding to him post, but this trying to force lightning to strike twice is absurd. stop “ic posting” on cherubplay. half the ones posting aren’t any good. the one that’s circling around tumblr is a perfect storm. it’s not going to happen again because you strain yourself to post as kanaya or equius or I don’t know who else, but I’ve definitely seen at least one other “ic post” today on cherubplay and I’m forgetting about it.
it’s not going to happen and be that brilliant if you’re trying to force it. calm the fuck down.
Failing to warn your users about an upcoming server change or give them any notice whatsoever about needing to save their logs and not even backing up your own site info is ragingly unprofessional.
I’ve stuck up for the parp mods in the past but I just outright cannot believe this shit, I’ve probably lost upwards of 20 pages per rp in a couple of one-on-one RPs in private chatrooms because of this. Entire plots and interactions gone. I keep thinking, did I miss the warning that this move was coming? But I’m hardly the only person who’s angry about this or who says I didn’t get a warning, as far as I can tell, so at least I can take solace in the fact that I’m not being ridiculous.
HOW YOU COULD HAVE DONE IT: Put a message on the frontsite about an upcoming server move. Give users time to acquaint with it. Have a server message about the upcoming move at the start of every chat/every time someone connects encouraging users to save and backup their logs on their own. I’ve seen systemwide messages before, I know you’re capable of it. Add an admin note into the subject of group chats that warns users about the upcoming move. Or, you know, made backups of your own site. But if the parp admins didn’t have room for that, I’d understand. But for real. Give people time to save their shit. And no, a couple hours isn’t time, not everyone lives in the States and plays during the day or evening. Give your users a couple days with that message appearing in their chat every time they connect.
WHAT YOU DID INSTEAD: Hey guys here’s a message that the site is offline with no forewarning! Did we mention you’re going to lose all your logs since about November? Guess it’s your own fault for not saving!
Don’t tell me to use the google cache, either. Google doesn’t cache most logs and I’m not sure where the idea that it does came from. I’ve tried several of my roleplays with the webcontent cache url and not a single one has shown up.
I know Parp is free and I feel the pain of the admins on a lot of stuff, but something being free doesn’t mean that you get a free pass on everything. This is unprofessional and ridiculous. You fucked up.
The blog known as rpingthehomestucks presents to you a list of things you should neverdo on anonymous RPing sites:
Ask for private information when the other person has made no intentions of wanting to contact you outside of the RP site.
Ask for private information when the other person has made no intentions of wanting to contact you outside of the RP site.
SERIOUSLY IF YOU ASK FOR PRIVATE INFORMATION WHEN THEY ALREADY STATED THEY DON’T WANT TO GIVE YOU ANYTHING OR HAVE SHOWN NO INTENTION OR DESIRE OF CONTACTING YOU OUTSIDE OF THE FUCKING WEBSITE YOU CLEARLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE REASON WHY SOME PEOPLE RP ON ANONYMOUS RP WEBSITES.
IT IS THEIR PERSONAL INFORMATION AND YOU SHOULD RESPECT THAT. PLEASE AND THANK.
for real, not every person you talk to on msparp or cherubplay is willing to give out their information. if you must ask, just ask “hey, would you like to keep in touch” and then respect it if they say no. don’t ask for a specific skype or a specific tumblr unless they respond affirmatively to the offer for contact, or offer that information up themselves.
many people come to parp and cherubplay specifically for the anonymity. they may not like having their name attached to the roleplay for one reason or another.
Okay, I literally have nothing new to add on the subject that hasn’t been said a thousand times before by much better writers, but don’t RP smut if you’re underage.
I’m sorry, yes, I know you want to and you have raging hormones or whatever, but it’s just not worth it.
…and even though I’m entombed up here in Northrend Canada, as I understand it, if you’re American you can get in shit (like ending up on a sex-offender’s list) even if you’re both underage.
Also, in the vein of not just blaming teens for this, it takes two to tango. If you’re not underage and you have good reason (or any reason) to think your partner is underage, I highly encourage you to dump that fucker like they’re fourth period French. Sever, because that shit is just not worth it.
While some sites have barriers of entry, Cherubplay (and MSPARP) don’t. Not even a little click-through ‘verify that you’re 18’ thing when you register or select ‘NSFW’. There is literally no legal recourse or justification or protections for you if get caught smutting with someone who’s underage. And don’t take the words ‘get caught’ as some sort of tacit approval or instruction to do it anyways and try not to get caught.
Basically, you can get in trouble, they can get in trouble. Everyone can get in trouble. We all want to bone the Striders, I know, but it’s not worth getting arrested or ending up on a sex-offenders list over.
moral of the story: you may think it’s harmless if you are underage and rp porn, but trust me, literally everybody faces bad consequences for it. including you.
don’t roleplay porn if you’re underage.
please.
(and, in addition, a shoutout to the rp partners I have had who always ask for ages before even the lightest shit happens in the rp. it makes me happy to know you are out there somewhere, refusing to do this shit.)
Well, someone tumblr-RPing Caliborn pretending to be the hacker responsible for MSPARP and Gigapause going down is definitely the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a while.
A while ago I saw a rainbow drinker prompt for Kanaya/boys on Cherubplay that contained a first line that went something like this: “Please do not read if you’re uncomfortable with Kanaya in sexual situations with boys.”
There were no excuses. No justifications about how sexuality is fluid or you just love who you love. No condescending “let me explain you a thing, you mean sjws.” No arguments that Kanaya was probably bi/pan; no arguments that her strict interest in females was just a preference or a fetish masking a bi/pan sexuality; not even a statement that they headcanoned her as bi/pan. No furious “don’t like, don’t reply” commentary. No furious whining about how people who were bothered by the premise were just being mean.
That’s the correct way to do it, for people who have been following the Dirk/girls shipping argument saga. Don’t make up excuses. Don’t try to prove you’re in the right for shipping Dirk/girls or Kanaya/boys. Warn people of what you’re doing so that they can skip by your prompt if that bothers them. And leave it at that. Don’t try to prove you have a right to do it and anyone who is bothered by it is just being a mean tightass. Don’t get defensive.
Is that hard?
Apparently, according to some of the shit I routinely see on Cherubplay.
Well done, random Kanaya roleplayer. If only the rest of Cherubplay could follow your example. I say that completely unironically. Sincerely. You did a good job. Thank you for taking other people into consideration and understanding that their reasons for being upset are legitimate.
As someone who has had my prompt stolen, it really fucking sucks, and you (or anyone else who tries to talk to this person and gets shut down) should report this person to cherubplay. They might make a new account but hopefully that will get the message across. Send the cherubplay tumblr a link to the chat and they’ll take care of it.
Don’t steal prompts, guys. Don’t even “trace over” prompts and edit them just enough that it’s not complete plagiarism. Take the idea and make a new prompt of your own, if you like it so much.
Look, guys, for fuck’s sake, it was annoying when you played other fandom characters on parp and it’s even more annoying on Cherubplay, because at least on parp people could uncheck the “Other (Canon)” box to avoid seeing you. (Even though the “Other (Canon)” box was meant for other Homestuck characters that were not on the list – Arquiusprite, Sawtooth, Felt members, Hal, Cal, et cetera, not for other fandom characters).
Putting non-Homestuck shit on Cherubplay is against the rules. You could be banned for it. And people that fucking come to Cherubplay to play Homestuck characters are probably sort of sick of you appending “stuck” to a different fandom to pretend it’s a crossover, and then just straight up playing the other fandom without any Homestuck elements at all.
Why are you playing Dangan Ronpa or Supernatural characters here? Go to fucking Charat, where they belong.
Look, guys, for fuck’s sake, it was annoying when you played other fandom characters on parp and it’s even more annoying on Cherubplay, because at least on parp people could uncheck the “Other (Canon)” box to avoid seeing you. (Even though the “Other (Canon)” box was meant for other Homestuck…
Actually, how about this? How about you ignore any prompts that you don’t want? Roleplaying is for /fun/. I know the person that made Cherubplay and I know for a fact that none of these people should be banned. Charat isn’t as good for Paragraph roleplaying and in fact, not many sites are. So get off your high horse for a moment and realize that there’s nothing wrong with Roleplaying a different fandom on Cherubplay.
The official fucking cherubplay tumblr says that you can be banned for playing non-Homestuck shit (crossovers where other characters play Sburb are ok; there just has to be a Homestuck element) and that it is a Homestuck-based RP site.
“Other fandom characters play Sburb”: OK. “Other fandom rp”: Not ok.
You claiming to know the person who runs Cherubplay doesn’t matter because they have directly said that the rules of the site contradict you.
Look, guys, for fuck’s sake, it was annoying when you played other fandom characters on parp and it’s even more annoying on Cherubplay, because at least on parp people could uncheck the “Other (Canon)” box to avoid seeing you. (Even though the “Other (Canon)” box was meant for other Homestuck…
Actually, how about this? How about you ignore any prompts that you don’t want? Roleplaying is for /fun/. I know the person that made Cherubplay and I know for a fact that none of these people should be banned. Charat isn’t as good for Paragraph roleplaying and in fact, not many sites are. So get off your high horse for a moment and realize that there’s nothing wrong with Roleplaying a different fandom on Cherubplay.
The official fucking cherubplay tumblr says that you can be banned for playing non-Homestuck shit (crossovers where other characters play Sburb are ok; there just has to be a Homestuck element) and that it is a Homestuck-based RP site.
“Other fandom characters play Sburb”: OK. “Other fandom rp”: Not ok.
You claiming to know the person who runs Cherubplay doesn’t matter because they have directly said that the rules of the site contradict you.
Okay, fine. Good argument. But just consider whether or not you really need to report something that you can just ignore. Maybe someone likes that non-homestuck prompt and want to roleplay with them? Why would you want to stop them?
Why do you think that I, personally, have been reporting anyone? I am trying to warn people that this behavior could get them reported by other people, who are allowed to report them because it is against the rules.
There are other sites they can take their other-fandom RP to. The admins of cherubplay have said that this site is for Homestuck only. RP being “just for fun” does not change that this is breaking the rules of the site and there are other venues they could go to.
I've seen people show up as offline, but reply in a relatively timely manner. And sometimes they keep displaying as offline for a while throughout the rp. Is there a possibility it's glitching?
probably? i mean for one reply i had someone show as ‘offline’ until their first post showed up. it was sort of the ‘no updates available’ thing going on (and that was last night).
but like??? for earlier tonight, one of my demonstuck prompts were answered with an insta-offline and it waslike that for an hour with current updates going great
so i just??? ended it.
so apologies in advance if that was anyone reading and were actually replying. i might repost tomorrow. im kinda tired and irritated with cherubplay and those on it for the evening cuz of a thing.
After a lot of farting around I found something on either the cherubplay tumblr or the new msparp one that says someone only shows up as online when they’re in the chat window, so if they go back to the frontpage they appear as offline.
That said, I’ve been having this happen to me a couple times tonight and it still sucks. I got an OOC response on one prompt asking for clarification, which I provided, and then, bam. Offline. Haven’t seen ‘em since. It’s really irritating.
I get grumpy when there are humanstuck AUs that ask to change the trolls to "human" names, when they really mean white, western, English-speaking normative names, or just in general when people imply that what their names are in canon can't be given to a human.
Fucking deadpan staring at all these prompts like “this is a prompt for a different fandom entirely and I’m looking for characters x and y from that fandom BUT HOMESTUCK CHARACTERS CAN REPLY SO IT COUNTS AS A CROSSOVER AND THEREBY ISN’T AGAINST THE RULES”
your disguise is some John Egbert beagle puss level shit, which is to say: No one is fooled by it whatsover. It is a Really Shitty Disguise.
But in more POSITIVE news, loving the wave of “No minors, please” in requests. Please continue doing this, Cherubplay, let’s make this a constant thing.
I make a lot of prompts (not a lot, but like, four at most currently) that just ask for the other Beta kids, and from my experience so far on cherubplay, Rose’s answer them the most. Then Dave sometimes. And once in the fifth blue moon, a John.
No complaints at all, just something I noticed. Have any other beta kid players noticed a pattern of the similar nature? Or even alpha kid players looking for other alphas?
As a person who mostly RPs Dirk, I mostly get responses from Jake, then Jane. The difference in number between the two is not nearly as much as you would think, and I personally have almost never gotten a Roxy, though I see a lot of Roxy RPers specifically including Dirks in their list for seeking. Maybe it’s just a misalignment in prompt vs reply preferences? The only ones I’ve gotten of note are Jakes and Janes. Not even many Daves when I don’t specify beta/alpha, not many Roxys, and not a single Caliborn of yet.
Hilariously, I also am one of those blue moon Johns that always replies to Jades and almost never takes up Rose or Dave prompts. Hrm.
But is that prompt just a variation on a popular trope, or is it actually stealing my idea, and is it close enough to be worth bothering to report it: A novel.
- your otp has a loving and consensual bdsm relationship with lots of aftercare. I personally prefer it without all the “master/mistress” trappings because while I know those relationships exist, on cherubplay it seems like they are skirting just shy of slavestuck.
- one member of your otp works at a 24 hour diner and the other regularly comes in at obscene hours of the night.
- your characters are undercover police trying to bust a drug ring and get into a ZANY/DANGEROUS SITUATION that does not involve either of them getting picked up by a trafficking ring because we just went over this, end slavestuck.
- your characters live in a society where literally everyone is some kind of mythical creature and happen across each other one day.
- study group for a super intense college class with a bizarre name and subject!
- one character is a video game designer and the other is a tester and they keep getting into fights with each other.
Whoa buddy, calm down, I cannot be on cherubplay 24/7. If I don’t respond to your prompt for a few hours it’s probably because I am busy. I am an adult with a job and a life outside RP, there is no need to drop constant ooc pokes about a roleplay I haven’t responded to yet. Maybe I’m just not feeling it yet today! It doesn’t mean I’m fucking off, just that I need a break. That’s the good thing about Cherubplay. You can take breaks.
I get grumpy when there are humanstuck AUs that ask to change the trolls to "human" names, when they really mean white, western, English-speaking normative names, or just in general when people imply that what their names are in canon can't be given to a human.
Dittoed. Also when people in the tag go “Davi isn’t a real name” or whatever when they’re making fun of the fem!Dave names. I’m not a fan of fem!Dave but Davi’s an actual legit Hebrew name as well as a nickname for a couple of Hindu names.
Completely ignoring the fact that Davi is a real name (Which I did not know, always happy to have more information)
I think the biggest issue is that generally, if you are giving the trolls ‘White, western, English-speaking normative names’ there is a fairly high chance that you possess a ‘white, western, English-speaking normative name’
As someone who does possess one of that kind of name, I can assure you that I am far more familiar with naming conventions that go with that type of name. This makes it easier to come up with names for characters.
The other main part (for me at least) being that when I have attempted to use non-European based naming, (Or even more specific location based naming, ie. Scottish names versus European names) I have been called a poseur, overly pc, stupid, and a hidden racist. Simply because I didn’t know how their naming schemes worked, and had to find my names from the internet.
Generally, if you are writing fanfiction, you want to have fun, and save for some notable exceptions, you don’t want to spend a lot of time and effort preparing for the story, before you can even start writing it. Ie. You generally don’t want to spend an entire week a) deciding on a nationality for a character b) researching that nationality c) researching common names for that nationality d) trying to piece together a name that sounds reasonable and finally e) repeating that for all eleven (or more) other trolls.
Don’t get me wrong. People should try to do this, but it takes a lot of practice, and unless you intend to pursue a career in creative writing, it’s usually easy enough to get by without being able to.
I’m sorry that the ‘human’ names annoy you, but I can pretty much guarantee that 99.999% were not chosen in an attempt to offend you.
The implication there though is that a ‘white, western, English-speaking normative’ person has only met fellow ‘white, western, English-speaking’ people. And that they have never heard or read any name that doesn’t fit the naming patterns that they’re used to.
I’m South Asian. Specifically Sri Lankan. Off the top of my head, I can offer you some standard names for English, German, Japanese, Sri Lankan, Russian, Hindu, Ethiopian, Bangladeshi, Tamil, Chinese, South Korean, French, Turkish, Greek, Iraqi and Brazilian culture. And that’s just from the people that I personally know and their families. How the hell someone can never ever encounter any names that aren’t “white, western,English-speaking normative ones is beyond me”.
I mean, do people not listen to music at all? Watch movies? Is Beyonce not a name to them? Or Lupita?
The problem isn’t people getting offended by the ‘human’ names.
The problem is that when you say that THIS NAME IS NOT A HUMAN NAME, you are implying that real actual human people with that name don’t count as human and that a culture with those names isn’t human.
There is a long history of people of color being called subhuman or not acknowledged as human, and of them having their names made fun or not treated like real names. I’ve had a nurse tell me, when I was being admitted for surgery, that she thought my name was made up.
Personally, I’d rather be called a ‘hidden racist’ for trying to be respectful of other people’s cultures than be an actual racist by pretending that certain names and cultures don’t exist. Overly PC isn’t even an insult.
I wasn’t saying I disagree with the issues with the ‘That isn’t a real name!’ Bullshit. Because that’s what it is. Bullshit. There is literally a child out there with the name Hashtag. Take a name and give it to a person and ta-dah, it’s a real name, it is a name used for people. Honestly, the moment someone names their child after a homestuck character (which was a decent probability of happening) even those troll names become human names.
So yeah, saying that any given name isn’t a ‘human name’ is complete shit.
I was just giving the perspective of someone who grew up in a small, almost entirely white town, who didn’t care about actors past the characters they played (ie. Legolas) and who grew up with the spice girls and backstreet boys of whom, oh look, scary spice wasn’t white. I’m fairly certain her name was ‘Melanie’. Real non-‘white’ name there.
All I’m saying is that ‘white, western, English-speaking normative names’ are also ‘human’ names, and that the people who use those names are also human. Humans make mistakes. Humans unintentionally hurt people’s feelings.
Should they put more work into trying to represent more cultures? Absolutely.
But unless they chose those names out of an active choice to ignore other races, you shouldn’t get angry with them. People who make fun of names saying they aren’t real. Feel free to take them to school. In fact, please do, they could probably use a lesson or two on the world.
I was just commenting about the first half of the ask. Not the second part.
Get off my blog post.
My roleplay blog is not a “but think about the poor white kids” blog.
how can you have never encountered names that are not western white English names
I mean there are entire name etymology sites strewn all over the internet and you want to tell me you’ve never looked at a single one? Never? Not once? You don’t have to be a creative writer to find name etymology cool.
Also, a lot of “western white English-speaking” names are based in other cultures, so that very premise is already wrong. Michael, David, and Jonathan are names that have been westernized from the Hebrew language, for example. Sophia/Sophie, which is among the most popular western baby names at the moment? Greek! And this oh-so-white name Melanie? Comes from the French version of a Latin name inspired by a Greek word.
I mean come on. Visit behindthename.com or something, don’t sit there and complain about how you can’t POSSIBLY expect people to know jack shit about names that aren’t Westernized.
Usually easy enough to get by without needing to know non-Western names? This is the age of the internet. It’s child’s play to find non-Western names.
(also bothered by the WELL THE NAME HASHTAG EXISTS shit here, that’s not what this is about, this is about the marginalization of non-western names. Plus, the troll names could already be human names, that was the point. This “the minute somebody names their kid after a troll” shit, holy fuck. And are you KIDDING me with that sentence about Scary Spice?)
how about you stop. please please please don’t do this please. yes it seems kinda rude to just up and disconnect on cherubplay but you shouldn’t do this because of it. I disconnected because this person wasn’t following what I said in the first sentence of my prompt. but if someone disconnects though, you should assume its for a good reason. so dont go and find their prompt and do this. :/
For real, it’s sucked when people disconnect from my chats without telling me why and then repost, but what I do is I respect that perhaps my style of reply did not mesh with what they were looking for and go on my way. That is how you should do. Do not do this, do not post “prompts” on the main page demanding an explanation, write it off and go on with your life.
When you are looking for a Bro, and only a Bro, you should probably uncheck Dirk’s box on Parp, and if you leave it checked, you should not be surprised when the Dirk you get acts like Dirk and not like Bro. Just because some people use Dirk’s color for Bro does not mean they are the same character. Just because someone is on Parp as Dirk does not mean they are in the mood currently, or even ever, to play Bro because you try to pressure them into it.
I really thought this problem would stop when the guardian checkboxes got added fucking forever ago. It has not. I still routinely run into Daves and Johns, while playing Dirk, that are shocked and disconnect from me when I act like Dirk instead of Bro.
(for fuck’s sake, guys, use the fucking checkboxes when you don’t want a character. That’s what they are there for. Nobody will ever know.)
I know people think it’s “funny” to connect to one of the more obscure prompts and the completely go out of range of what the original poster was looking for (I.e. someone joins a prompt and immediately types a paragraph where they kill the original poster’s character for whatever reason and then disconnect).
Don’t do that.
Don’t be that asshole. I can guarantee you that person has NEVER done something like that to you and they’re just looking for a fucking roleplay.
I hope you get reported and banned for being a rude little shitstain on the underwear of the world’s sweatiest hotdog vendor to someone who’s just looking for a roleplay.
~Hades
I saw someone bragging about doing this in a pretty gruesome way on the tag and it’s gross. Don’t do it. Really do not be that asshole. If you think it’s a weird or ridiculous prompt, ignore it and go on your way. There are a lot of weird and ridiculous prompts on Cherubplay. I’ve seen a lot that are bizarre and slightly nonsensical NSFW prompts. The person who did this in the tag took one of those.
And I ignore them and look for stuff that aligns more with what I want to reply with. I don’t take the prompts to be a dick and insta-disconnect. And I definitely don’t take the prompts to make them into surrealist shit because the prompter used the wrong version of “canon” (what is this, fanficrants?) or have one character brutally kill the prompter’s character because the prompter said something in a weird way, or whatever.
Something being on this card is not necessarily a condemnation of said thing — no problem with OCs, AUs, humanstuck, etc — although there are some things on here that should be condemned. Just. Not all of them.
Scroll through the current prompts and see how fast you hit bingo!
God this is good. I was legitimately just considering making one of these. Thank you.
I only wish there was a “godmoding another character into behavior they would never actually commit” box after seeing a prompt that outright said a certain character who would never do any such thing “took advantage” of the prompter’s character.
But I guess that’s the free space? I guess that is the free space.
I also would count all these “Slavestuck masquerading as BDSM” under the “Rape posing as BDSM” box.
okay so ignoring all of the other shitty problems with this trainwreck
i find it ironic that the one person who has been canonically taken advantage of and received rape threats within the canon of homestuck is the guy you choose to be roxy’s rapist.
that’s just bad fucking taste wtf.
THIS IS IT. This is the one I was so angry about yesterday. Jake fucking English taking advantage of anyone? Are we talking about the same Jake? Don’t fucking make other characters OOC in your prompt for a source of drama.
but its relatively harmless and he has never actually hurt someone or crossed any moral boundaries with his behavior
comparing that to characters like cronus or vriska just seems like whoever is doing the comparison hasn’t you know
actually read homestuck or even understands how personalities work.
I have found that this fandom sees a weird need to exaggerate the negative traits of just about every character, but especially the ones they see as unfairly popular. Hence we get all this ranting about how John is actually a HUGE ASSHOLE!!! when most of John’s jerkiness is teasing and good-spirited, or stuff about how Dave is actually a huge misogynist, or Karkat is abusive, or what have you.
And while it’s all right to read certain behaviors in these characters as damaging and talk about them, it just seems a little bit, I don’t know, spiteful, to insist in defiance of the story itself that Karkat’s behavior is damaging to his friends (all of them seem to find it mostly enderaring) or that John really doesn’t care about hurting people’s feelings (when he’s gone to efforts specifically not to most of the time, even whilst being jerkish).
I mean I know I can’t go a week on my personal dash without seeing some sort of passive-aggressive ~friendly reminder~ post that exaggerates all the kids’ bad traits to prove the point that they are a smarter, wiser, more observant fan than all those silly fans who think John is well-intentioned or Karkat has a big gooey center or whatever. It’s just all tied in to needing to feel like a “better” fan by acting like you’ve found some aspect of the character other people ignore.
the only thing worse than metaknowledge roleplayers is the roleplayers who get mad when you refuse to play with the metaknowledge they want from you. they want your character to recognize someone they’ve never met, because THEIR character illogically gets to have metaknowledge. then they accuse you of being ooc or a bad roleplayer when you don’t humor them and keep your character to ic knowledge only.
Participating in a sexual roleplay (or having any conversation of a sexual nature) with someone who is under 18 is illegal. If you do it, you can be arrested and go to jail.
If you want to roleplay a sexual situation, you must check the age of the person you are roleplaying with before you start.
If you are under 18, do not answer prompts asking for people over 18. They are not avoiding you because they are judging your maturity/writing style/etc. They are avoiding you because they do not want to go to jail.
But is that prompt just a variation on a popular trope, or is it actually stealing my idea, and is it close enough to be worth bothering to report it: A novel.
“match my paras please i write five paras all discussing the surroundings, sounds, smells and bowel functions of my characters and i want you to do that too every single time even if it’s entirely unnecessary”
i be like
for real though, wanting someone to come close to your length to start with is understandable but all these fucking prompts like “if you EVER drop below four 5-line paragraphs I will [VIVID THREAT OF VIOLENCE]” like uhhhhh chill out buddy. it is just fictional roleplays on the internet. you will live.
I always feel awkward about asking if I can play a character when the OOC specifies “any [group character I want to play belongs to] welcome!” but I’ve been disconnected on before when playing characters that the prompter specifically requested, so, better safe than sorry I guess.
This site and tag could really use a reminder that we’re not all American.
We don’t all have the same age of consent (though Ido understand and agree with covering your ass from rp’ing with those underaged to you) and the American 18+ doesn’t mean that everyone under 18 has never had sex even if we pretend that people wait until they’re of age.
We don’t all go to American colleges, eat American food or grow up calling football soccer.
We don’t all know American geography or how the states work or how the infrastructure looks and works compared to our hometown.
We don’t all have English as our first language.
Roleplaying Homestuck in human environments (pre-game, post-game, humanstuck) typically place us in America, sometimes for completely logical reasons and sometimes not. Thing is, roleplaying a completely different culture is HARD. We have to learn social cues and customs, basic geography and the social perspective on it, often we also need to know the cultural climate, traditions, some more legal stuff and basically a shitton of other stuff (why are American tampons so long, i.e.).
Most of us sort of learn the gist of this stuff, through hanging on tumblr or interacting with americans or intaking american culture such as books or v-shows. Through all this we create an idea of America we use when we roleplay. Many of you might not even think of the fact that you have a culture but to us it become very obvious especially when we say things in the context of the roleplay which might not be completely true to the culture and we are d/c’d for it.
Most of the time it seems we are pretty good at avoiding situations in which this will show, but in some instances it’s simply impossible to know without having been there.
You Americans have got a good deal for free in that you don’t have to do as much research and also have your oen country as starting point more often than not. (Not to mention the english language.)
Honestly, this is just a reminder. I don’t expect any changes and I don’t really feel like they’re necessary. I do, however,wish that American roleplayers keep this in mind and be kind on those of us who are still learning. America is not a stick with which to measure the world.
Alright, look, I get the point of what you’re saying and a lot of it is on point, but the 18+ thing is just wrong.
Most Americans know that kids have sex before 18, unless they are fundie conservatives. That’s why there’s an ongoing argument about the importance of sex ed in schools, because kids will have sex whether they know about it or not. Americans are not en masse sitting there thinking boy it’s sure a good thing I protected those 16 year olds from the nastiness of sex! Those poor innocent babies!
They make the 18+ rule because in most of the states you can be arrested as a sex offender if the person you’re smutting with is under 18.
Doesn’t matter where they’re from. Doesn’t matter if the age of consent in their country is younger. Doesn’t matter if their laws are different. In America, you’re still fucked (figuratively) if someone finds you roleplaying sexual things with a minor. Even if the minor “consented” (because you cannot consent to sexual activity with an adult before the age of 18). There are some states where the age is younger, but all in all, it’s just plain safer to make that rule.
If some Americans really think most children don’t have sex until over 18, they’re either very misled or very young. But that’s not what the rule is about. You say you understand it but I’m not quite sure why you even listed it if you do, much less attached “but kids DO have sex younger than that” to it. Of course they do! Most Americans are aware of it. I’m not sure why you think that’s part of the issue.
Obviously the RP world in general needs to be less America-centric and there needs to be a lot more understanding of people from different cultures, but some of the people RPing don’t know any more about American colleges or bars or mass transit or whatever else than non-Americans do, because they’re very young. But I really think the auto-DC thing goes a lot further than that and needs a lot more discussion than just the culture it reflects.
The people DCing need to have a lot more patience in general. I’ve almost never DCed from a roleplay until it had run its course and I got bored. But I’ve gotten DCed on within my first reply to someone else’s post several times with no explanation. Was it that I moved too fast? Was my writing not good enough for them (even though it was often better than the prompt – not to sound arrogant, but honestly and truly)? Did they realize maybe they didn’t want that character after all?
It’s weird that on a medium that makes anonymous communication so easy, there’s so little of it. Very few of my RPs have OOC conversation between posts – but the ones that do are fantastic, because we get to work out where we want things to go next and what appeals to us. I’d just urge people to use the OOC box more in general. Talk to your partners! Ask them about their reply if you don’t understand it! Don’t be shy, it’s anonymous, they don’t know who you are.
Basically most of your stuff is correct and RPers need to think a lot about it but I’m not sure why the 18+ paragraph is even there. It’s not about what age people have sex at, it’s about the American laws.
My god. Can we please not do this whole mental hospital delusions of being a troll thing. That AU was bad when the idea got started and applying it to canon characters or OCs for your weird rp scenario is nasty. Don’t do it. Stop.
What is with this fucking fascination people have with writing AUs where everything is ~all in the character’s head~?
“you can decide everything about your character’s personality and motivations! well, except for the fact that they’re a rapist and abuser. I’m not letting you decide otherwise about that.”
Somebody needs to stop the John who desperate for a rapist bully. Not only is that gross as he*k as they have no problem with rape, but also because John has a bird on his head. "Ravenette" shut up it's fucking black.
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So pretentious. All joking aside though I had to see this before it disappeared again and,
This is trashily written and fucked up. I would understand if someone needed a safe alternative to get through their own personal situation but this just reeks of rape fetishizing. “Alright have fun” is not something to be said enthusiastically about such a sensitive subject.
This person is literal trash and should be intercepted/avoided at all costs.
EDIT: I would also like to add that this may either be a teenager or a troll because “ravenette” was actually a popular term in the FF.net community between starter teens and troll authors alike so the prompt should be taken as something to be extremely wary of, teens not understanding the impact of such things and troll prompters doing it to just get a rise in the ChrbP tag again.
I think it might be a troll mocking a Jake who’s been going around with a similar prompt? I also saw this happen early in my Cherubplay days, where a Jake RPer kept requesting a Dirk who was over the top and OOC in the level of manipulation, coercion, and sexual guilting they wanted him to display, and then someone made a Dirk prompt along the same lines to highlight how absurd (and disgusting) it was.
Still shouldn’t do it, but I’ve definitely seen a Jake one going around with a similar OOC opening and a similar plea for “dub/noncon.” Maybe it’s just the same person using their prompt on a different character. Or maybe it’s a troll trying to mock someone.
Somebody needs to stop the John who desperate for a rapist bully. Not only is that gross as he*k as they have no problem with rape, but also because John has a bird on his head. "Ravenette" shut up it's fucking black.
So pretentious. All joking aside though I had to see this before it disappeared again and,
This is trashily written and fucked up. I would understand if someone needed a safe alternative to get through their own personal situation but this just reeks of rape fetishizing. “Alright have fun” is not something to be said enthusiastically about such a sensitive subject.
This person is literal trash and should be intercepted/avoided at all costs.
EDIT: I would also like to add that this may either be a teenager or a troll because “ravenette” was actually a popular term in the FF.net community between starter teens and troll authors alike so the prompt should be taken as something to be extremely wary of, teens not understanding the impact of such things and troll prompters doing it to just get a rise in the ChrbP tag again.
I think it might be a troll mocking a Jake who’s been going around with a similar prompt? I also saw this happen early in my Cherubplay days, where a Jake RPer kept requesting a Dirk who was over the top and OOC in the level of manipulation, coercion, and sexual guilting they wanted him to display, and then someone made a Dirk prompt along the same lines to highlight how absurd (and disgusting) it was.
Still shouldn’t do it, but I’ve definitely seen a Jake one going around with a similar OOC opening and a similar plea for “dub/noncon.” Maybe it’s just the same person using their prompt on a different character. Or maybe it’s a troll trying to mock someone.
It’s still really distasteful, even if it’s satirical.
If there is any situation to apply the “Don’t fight fire with fire” quote it would be situations like this.
Oh absolutely no disagreement there whatsoever. I just honestly can’t tell if this is the same prompt or “satire.” (imagine air quotes; this is not true satire. It is Family Guy “satire.” It is “satire” that says a shitty thing and then laughs loudly.)
no this is actually the stupidest thing ive ever fucking seen im going to break it down for you:
nobody actually thinks dave canonically has a crush on his brother. if he did/if they do, it actually isnt that far of a stretch to assume that his admiration, when conflicted with how bro isn’t actually all that amazing, manifested into something mistakable for romantic love. incest does happen in the real world and there are psychological reasons for it. if someone wants to explore that in roleplay, shut the fuck up.
dave is made uncomfortable by his brother because of his business exploits and affinity for puppets which!!! hate to break this to you!!! but that is a form of sexual abuse because Bro is Dave’s legal guardian and Dave is a minor!! ~*not all types of abuse are violent*~
are you really gonna whine about people aging someone up for a roleplay. really. really????? come on.
don’t even fucking get me started on these “”“acceptable race headcanons”“” theyre so racist i dont even know where to begin. acceptable race headcanon: dark skin with all white features because ew black people hair SCARES ME!!!!! sit the fuck down. no one headcanons dave with green skin youre being so racist. leave.
LMAO HOW IS DAVE NOT SUBMISSIVE?? YOU TELL HIM TO SHUT UP AND HIS ANSWER IS “ok” THAT IS LITERALLY THE DEFINITION OF SUBMISSIVE. go read dave’s logs again. go on. i’ll wait.
you’re right sitting next to your brother’s dead body and watching your sister descend into alocoholism and getting cheated on by your girlfriend are totally things that could NEVER make a guy depressed. you’re right. ur so right. depression is a gross disease for fucking weirdos, right?????? lmao.
who cares if someone wants to call dave gay for their roleplay literally who actually cares. “”HE HAS CANON CRUHSSUESH ON GIRLS?/?” LOTS OF GAY GUYS HAD CRUSHES ON GIRLS GROWING UP???? ITS CALLED BEING RAISED IN A WORLD OF HETERONORMATIVITY? be quiet.
dave’s kinda shy i mean jesus he mumbles to himself 90% of his life.
again, boo fucking hoo, people want to roleplay ships GOD grow UP i can’t believe this.
“DAVE IS NOT QUIET” ARE YOU SERIOUS? HE SAT BY THE COFFEE MACHINE AND MUMBLED TO HIMSELF INSTEAD OF CARRYING ON A CONVERSATION WITH ROSE AND KANAYA. GO READ DAVE AGAIN.
“waaaah dont roleplay him with original characters hes TOO GOOD FOR THAT and ALL OCS are MARY SUE TRASH because ON TOP OF BEING RACIST AND ABLEIST I’M PROBABLY REALLY FUCKING SEXIST”
“waaaah don’t ship things i don’t like even though dave and karkat have developed a close relationship that has plenty of potential to escalate further I DONT LIKE PEOPLE ROLEPLAYING THAT because I PERSONALLY DON’T LIKE IT”
“DAVE LOVES JADE CANONONNCIA SO THATS THE ONLY!!! SHIP!!!! YOURE ALLOWED!!! TO ROLEPLAY!!!!!!!” CITATION NEEDED dave hasn’t been shown to canonically love ANYONE except WOAH???? TEREZI?!?!??!?!?!
“DAVE ISNT IN A RELATIONSHPI!” really. reaaaaaally. really?? we aren’t allowed to roleplay relatoinships now?????? hey are u a traffic cop? bc ur doing more policing then youve been invited to do
finally: shut up you fucking racist
This is a much better takedown of this absurd post that includes everything about it, not just the pointless fucking ship comment, and includes my previously-unmentioned anger about the incredibly racist “MY HEADCANON DAVE IS GREEN LOL”
literally the worst thing is when people try to “challenge” popular fandom versions of characters and get it totally wrong themselves
for example people getting annoyed at rpers woobifying john, and then saying john is an ASSHOLE!!! don’t play him like a sweetheart!!!!!!
how about john can be both sweet and an asshole at times. just like every other living person on the earth.
because people are complex creatures, complex (and hypocritical) enough that painting them with the stereotype brush either way is hurtful and reduces them to stereotypes
i understand that the human mind works best through stereotypes, it’s hard for us to try to comprehend all the complexities of every single individual, but no one person is one way all the time
stereotyping is your mind being lazy and taking shortcuts. i highly suggest anyone who thinks someone is This Way 100% Of The Time reevaluates their thought process on that because it probably extends to stereotyping people irl too
I'm not sure if this interests the church, but do you have any pointers on playing AR? i want to put up a prompt for him on cherubplay soon and i just u.u
Your interest in the Church interests the Church, anon. Come into the holy light and have your brow anointed with consecrated oil. I’ll let you decide if that’s a money shot euphemism.
The thing to remember about AR is that his human half is significantly younger than everyone else. He’s an imprint of Dirk’s thirteen year old mind. Think about what dickslits everyone is at thirteen. Think about that long and hard, and then give that little shithead the power of unbridled computative and integrative capacity.
We’re talking dick jokes for miles, a superiority complex that doesn’t quit, and a rebellious streak powered by the sun itself. Good job convincing that dude he isn’t right about anything. You might as well try to explain to the preteen idiot you’re talking to on your Xbox headset why go back to the kitchen jokes aren’t funny.
However, like all thirteen year old shithead dickslits, you can get through to AR. You can do this by not dismissing him and just talking to him like he’s a normal dude.
I think the biggest mistake people make when playing AR is they go too far with making him impassive, although tbh this is a problem with all Striders. AR might be the most impassive of them all, but there are things he cares about, and there are things he gets upset over. He has real fears, and he shows them.
AR is Dirk’s sophomoric, unrestrained id, trapped in a pair of shades. He does what he thinks is necessary to get what he wants, and he enjoys fucking with people but he isn’t without morals or a heart, so to speak. He just has a hard time finding where the line is that shouldn’t be crossed, because his idea of morality has diverged from human Dirk’s.
Don’t play AR as evil. I really hate it when people make him evil, have him sell out humanity, have him be nothing but a sadistic douche, etc. I think that’s way too simplistic of a take on him.
Oh my FUCKING god, are we seriously having a body type headcanons argument in this goddamned tag?
I don’t save reaction gifs but I sure wish I had one to depict banging my head against the fucking wall.
pro tip! If you say “I don’t care if you headcanon [character] as chubby” and then proceed to try and prove that the character couldn’t be chubby, you actually do care. You care a lot. And you care in a pretty goddamn ridiculous way. If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t find it necessary to prove you’re right about the characters being thin.
Oh my FUCKING god, are we seriously having a body type headcanons argument in this goddamned tag?
I don’t save reaction gifs but I sure wish I had one to depict banging my head against the fucking wall.
pro tip! If you say “I don’t care if you headcanon [character] as chubby” and then proceed to try and prove that the character couldn’t be chubby, you actually do care. You care a lot. And you care in a pretty goddamn ridiculous way. If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t find it necessary to prove you’re right about the characters being thin.
nah. I just wanted to share my head canon,and why i have that head canon, as well as why it makes sense in my head. See, i need a reason for the head canon. I can’t just…decide something, without there being back up evidence without it.
I could care less if you have a ‘X character is chubby’ head canon. Just give a possible reason besides screaming ‘genetics’ or ‘maybe its natural’. Give multiple reasons, or just…dont get into an argument about it. Because its a weak argument.
WHY? Why do hey need to prove it? What if they just like the idea of Dave having babyfat chub or Jake being roly-poly or Jade being outright fat? Why do their headcanons have to align with YOUR definition of what a headcanon should be?
If you just wanted to share your headcanon, you wouldn’t then go on to try and argue that chubby Dave headcanons didn’t make any sense because oh well he has a sword, but John has trouble lifting a sledgehammer. John is 13 and a fake sword is a hell of a lot lighter than a sledgehammer. But why does it matter? Why does anyone NEED multiple reasons?
For that matter, why aren’t “genetics” and “natural build” acceptable reasons to you?
This isn’t a debate club. And for that matter, you don’t get to demand that everyone else prove themselves worthy of your gracious tolerance.
Why don’t YOU give multiple reasons for Dave being skinny? Not physical fitness, oh no, because if we’re going strictly by false, popular culture beliefs about how exercise works, then Dave shouldn’t be skinny, he should be a fucking bodybuilder. “Skinny” and “muscled” are not anywhere even approaching the same thing. A skinny person can have muscle, yes … but so can a fat person.
The human body is a hell of a lot more complicated than “you work out you stay skinny, you eat a lot you get fat” and reducing it down to that is not only factually incorrect, but fatphobic! Do you know how many people there are who are fat by society’s standards that just have heavy builds despite working out regularly? Do you know how much shit they get from people who think it’s as easy as eating less and jogging a little (or, in this case, playfighting with a fake sword against a puppet)?
Do you know anything about physical fitness?
If you “just wanted to share your headcanon” then you could have just said “I personally imagine Dave as skinny.” End of. But you didn’t want to “just share” anything. You wanted to prove you were right and demand that the people whose views didn’t align with yours prove they had a right to think how they do.
Andrew god damned Hussie has said that you can picture the characters however you like. Whatever race, whatever height, whatever build. Which means that other people have every right to picture the characters how they want, and they don’t have to justify that to anyone, least of all someone who thinks that chubby people can’t be physically fit.
So get off your fucking high horse and just realize the world – and the human body! – is a hell of a lot more complicated than you know about.
(And for your information, this argument goes a lot further than just you.)
Ok, I’ve accepted that I just don’t fucking get abusive boyfriend prompts. Maybe there’s an appeal to them I don’t understand. Maybe they’re vent roleplay. Maybe there’s some kind of weird appeal to making other characters hideously OOC for your rape kink that I just plain don’t share. I personally hate this whole OOC-villain-other-character-for-the-sake-of-drama trend, but you know what? Maybe I just don’t understand it. Fine. Fine, whatever.
But you want someone else to be an OOCly abusive boyfriend to Caliborn? You want Caliborn to be the victim of another character’s over the top, melodramatic, and completely out-of-character abuse and manipulation?
While I’m on that, there’s a worrying undercurrent with just how many physically abusive Dirk/Bro requests I’ve seen on the site. Like, leaving aside everything about Dirk’s character and whether he is emotionally abusive or not – a subject that has been thoroughly talked about by people that aren’t me and is still a pretty hot topic – I’ve seen requests for abusive, rapist Dirks or Bros from Johns, Daves, Jakes, Roxys, and now Caliborns. And more that I’m definitely forgetting!
It’s pretty fucking worrying that you take the only canon-confirmed gay male in the entire comic and make him into your OOC rapist boogeyman for the sake of drama. I mean, you know, it’s not like “all gay men are rapists” is a huge issue in society that people mindlessly repeat or anything.
It’d even be one thing if these requests were playing off Dirk’s actual personality traits. And boy, does he have shit you could play off of. His penchant for guilting people and assuming he’s right. His controlling tendencies and his belief that he knows what’s best for everyone. Maybe his tendency to think he doesn’t have to tell anyone else what he’s doing, or that he doesn’t have to answer to anybody but himself, while everyone else has to answer to him. It’d be one thing if they played off Dirk’s fascination with the idea of controlling and manipulating other people, or if they built off Dirk’s self-loathing or even his belief that he could never be happy – maybe something about him taking that out on other people.
(I am not personally comfortable with abuse being roleplayed; but I can accept some people are, and I think there’s plenty to build off with Dirk that isn’t, well … see below?)
But what we’re getting is generic “Dirk hits my character” stuff. “Dirk rapes my character and blackmails them to keep them from leaving.” “Dirk has all but enslaved my character in a BDSM-in-name-only relationship.” “Dirk forces my character into sex and then physically harms them when they fight back.”
It’s pretty concerning to me that Dirk is the one who gets so much of this when A) he hasn’t interacted abusively (or at all) with half the characters I see these prompts from, B) there’s other characters who are way, way more likely to be physically abusive than Dirk, whose possibly-abusive behavior (again, covered better by other people than by me) is all emotional and mental, and C) Dirk is seriously the sole confirmed canon gay male in the entire comic.
Not to mention, D) some of these characters requesting OOC abusive rapist Dirks are way, way more likely to be physically abusive than Dirk himself is. (Caliborn? For real?)
Look, I know it’s fictional. I recognize that sometimes we mess around with dark stuff in fictional worlds. That’s ok. But sometimes you have to think about the deeper implications of the things you fuck around with in your fictional universes, and where you may have gotten the narrative from. And whether that narrative is one that should really be repeated.
hey if you’re all done arguing about the weight headcanon thing, please turn your attention to another issue we now have.
another g*psystuck prompt. oh, yes.
people never learn amirite.
I think my favorite thing about this one is how they call it Romanistuck but still claim that it’s ok for the character and his family to call themselves by the slur, as though awareness in exactly one place pardons everything else about the prompt.
Saying “I’m all right with all kinks except [kink A], [kink B], etc.” is actually not helpful to people who might answer your prompt. What does “etc.” mean? Things along those lines? Other commonly disliked kinks? It could mean anything. If you’re not sure what else would turn you off just say “please run any other kinks by me.” An “etc.” is very nebulous.
