The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc

Arkandel

@Ghost said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@Arkandel My answer remains the same. I don't care so long as it's for story and not for focusing on private RPed kink. I think it would be a serious waste to take on any meaningful canon character only to have 90% of their activity be on the hush.

How do you know if it's for story and not kinks?

Auspice

The only time I played on an HP game with canonical characters, the person running it was sort of... draconian in expecting characters to be played exactly to her vision of how they should be.

...the book series wasn't even finished yet. Order of the Phoenix was still new.

I did not play an FC. Draco pulled my character into things and catching Draco involved in the dark arts. Which led to a lot of scenes of him equal parts threatening / trying to sway her to evil. It was good RP. But I remember one day he put a bbpost up that was all 'Oooooo, I saw Draco Malfoy sneak off with......' because he thought it'd be funny.

this Staffer got PISSED, assuming our PCs were actually getting into a relationship (they weren't), and pulled us aside to lecture at length about how it wasn't proper and it wasn't an approved relationship for the FC and....

NOW.
NOW.
THAT SAID.

That game is why I don't like FCs except comic characters being played. At all. It made me realize that because of their flexibility (so many reboots, retellings, writers, etc etc), I'm more comfortable playing and playing with comic characters. Any others? nope.

Ghost

@Arkandel I don't. But I also think that dozens of hours of RP that doesn't yield readable logs and said to be story specifically for the 2 characters sequestered off in a room together defeats the entire purpose of MU.

If what people wanted was a place to roleplay privately and not share their character creation outside of that bubble, then go to google docs.

Be it for TSKink, private only RP, or however intriguing the RP may be, the concept of it being "important to that one person" isnt greater than the need for people to partake in the communal efforts of the game itself.

Make it worth something. That's all I say.

bored

@Arkandel I was going to write a lot more stuff but thinking about most of this just kind of reminded me why canon games tend to be disappointing (and it's a shame, because there are some I like in theory).

Ideally? You'd want people mixing and matching their relationships, trying out new dynamics and character angles (or why else are you playing?), etc. But 9 times out of 10, you see this stuff and it's just cringe garbage. It's the online couple where you just end up with not one but two interesting characters who are never in public. Or whatever orientation/gender/race bending they do follows the worst MU stereotypes so you get a LAS version of the character rather than an Asian version, or a slash fic gay version, etc.

I think @Ghost kinda hit it, mostly.

Auspice

@Arkandel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

How do you know if it's for story and not kinks?

see the previous reference re: Nightcrawler and the tail.

sometimes it's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally obvious.

Roz

@Arkandel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

So let's talk romance/TS involving canonical characters. Are there boundaries involved and, if so, what are they? To get us started:

Is it okay to create couples out of characters who are canonically with other people? Can (adult) Peter Parker date Captain Marvel?

Yes. And people who complain about this clearly haven't read many comics. Everyone has dated everyone.

Is it okay to change sexual orientations in any way?

Yes, IMO, as long as you're respecting the core of the character. The fact of the matter is that people not exploring other sides of their sexuality until later in life is a hugely common aspect of real life in the society we live in, and I don't consider it counter-canon if someone says, "I want to explore the potential of this PC to maybe also be attracted to people of the same gender." It can get a bit finicky if you go from one end of the spectrum to the other, although, really, the comics have done this, too. (I'm one of the people who thought it made more sense for Bobby Drake to discover his bisexuality rather than homosexuality, although it's also true that sometimes people do have big realizations that cast their past relationship difficulties into a very different light. This idea isn't actually unrealistic.)

However, I think if you take one of the few canonically queer characters and alter that, it's different. Don't do that. If you make Northstar straight you're a jerk.

After any of this happens and a character changes hands is it okay to revert them to the defaults in the same game?

I like to favor continuity wherever possible, but sometimes fresh starts can be necessitated.

Auspice

@Roz said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

(I'm one of the people who thought it made more sense for Bobby Drake to discover his bisexuality rather than homosexuality

I agree but also because bi-erasure sucks so it was like woo! bi chara- oh nm it was just a way to transition him into being gay $:\$ like yes it CAN be that for some people but it WOULD HAVE BEEN COOL to have another bi char in comics.

Coin

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@Ganymede said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

I mean, my version of Magma on ESH was a hard deviation

To be fair, also: Marvel characters outside the big core 'X-Men' group are easier to 'Year Zero' and just make up your own shit altogether.

In the X-Men: Evolution cartoon, they gender-bent Magma by making her Lance and plunking her in the Brotherhood. Similar character, slightly different powerset, but arguably (IMO I guess) that's exactly where he came from. The 'We need a buddy comedy situ for Pyro....... earth powers would work.... heeeeeeeeeeeey'

Avalanche (and his companionship with Blob and Pyro) is an actual character from the comics, not some replacement for Magma. In fact, in the comics, Pyro and Avalanche are a trio with the Blob, they were in Freedom Force together.

Like, sorry to get all comic book fact-nerdy on you, but uh.

Auspice

@Coin said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@Ganymede said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

I mean, my version of Magma on ESH was a hard deviation

To be fair, also: Marvel characters outside the big core 'X-Men' group are easier to 'Year Zero' and just make up your own shit altogether.

In the X-Men: Evolution cartoon, they gender-bent Magma by making her Lance and plunking her in the Brotherhood. Similar character, slightly different powerset, but arguably (IMO I guess) that's exactly where he came from. The 'We need a buddy comedy situ for Pyro....... earth powers would work.... heeeeeeeeeeeey'

Avalanche (and his companionship with Blob and Pyro) is an actual character from the comics, not some replacement for Magma. In fact, in the comics, Pyro and Avalanche are a trio with the Blob, they were in Freedom Force together.

Like, sorry to get all comic book fact-nerdy on you, but uh.

Well, then!
Usually I have these facts together!

I can't remember all the Marvel chars. There's vastly too many.

insomniac7809

There's no point in adhering slavishly to canon if you're RPing. The whole point is doing something other than the source material.
At the same time, if your character is not recognizable as their canonical version, you should probably just make an OC.
At the same time, Liv is awesome.
If we're talking about a comic book RP, you're probably not doing any worse by the character than at least one actual professional author who was paid actual money to write them under the actual imprint. If you do too bad a job, you can always blame skrulls/LMDs/eight-dimensional imps.

Auspice

@insomniac7809 said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

skrulls

maybe we're all skrulls

insomniac7809

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@insomniac7809 said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

skrulls

maybe we're all skrulls

why would you say that ha ha ha it is to laugh

Ganymede

@insomniac7809 said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

ha ha ha it is to laugh

Tinuviel

@L-B-Heuschkel said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

Still, I maintain, change small things all you like, but be wary of making large changes to canon

If you're not changing canon at all, then what's the point in playing?

Derp

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@insomniac7809 said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

skrulls

maybe we're all skrulls

No. I don't want no skrull.

Auspice

@Derp said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@insomniac7809 said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

skrulls

maybe we're all skrulls

No. I don't want no skrull.

alt text

Derp

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@Derp said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

@insomniac7809 said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

skrulls

maybe we're all skrulls

No. I don't want no skrull.

Look, I didn't have the energy to make a whole meme ok?

SparklesTheClown

Which parts of being in IC relationships, be they romantic and/or sexual or even otherwise, bind the players as well as the characters? For example...

If your PC is going to cheat IC on another character do you feel obligated to let your partner's player know?

I would let them know because I myself have had some incredibly bad experiences with this. And some people have had to deal with toxic players in the past who build expectations and then break them because it's "IC". It can make a lot of people have a lot of sensitive feelings regarding this, so I see it as a common courtesy to communicate. But RP should involve plenty of communication even beyond this anyway.

Do you think you are responsible for a character whose roleplay is related to yours if your paths are to separate? In other words do you feel guilty someone else's PC might become quote/unquote unplayable because of your IC choices?

Obviously, because I'm not a dick and RP is about multiple people having fun, not just me.

Very closely related to the above, what if the choice that takes a PC mostly off the table is OOC? For instance if you stop being active on my PC's spouse to play an alt with Theno's PC. Do I have the moral high ground to get pissed off?

That is kind of a line. If I get tired of playing a particular character, I'll communicate that and try my best to work something out to try to alleviate things as possible. But obviously I expect a level of maturity from people I play with. But, additionally, I don't usually enter into relationships with characters played by people I don't feel comfortable playing with, or have good communication with. Meaning, I don't do relationship RP with complete strangers who I haven't had time to feel out.

When it comes to TS what's the correct way to suggest it? Do you let the RP become more explicit until the big words come out or you get told no? Do you page the other player first and explicitly ask if they want to do it? Something else?

I don't really suggest TS. If a scene is headed in that direction, I page and say "Hey, if you need to fade or anything that's cool, though I'm fine either way". Though if I know someone and we're on the same page on this stuff, and we have a comfortable OOC rapport, I'm perfectly fine being like "Hey let me slam them yams".

Assuming OOC consent between adult players is there anything in an IC relationship, including TS, that you consider unethical? No, I'm not going to give examples since I'm keeping this classy! But you can.

I mean don't fuck kids I guess. Kind of lowkey weird. I know this will make some of you mad but I said what I said.

Auspice

@HelloProject said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

I'm perfectly fine being like "Hey let me slam them yams".

lemme smash

L. B. Heuschkel

@HelloProject

@HelloProject said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

I mean don't fuck kids I guess. Kind of lowkey weird. I know this will make some of you mad but I said what I said.

I wanted to laugh but then I remembered once on WoW my character was developing a relationship with another and had been over several real life weeks. They were now at the end of the second date kind of point and things were headed... Well, towards a private dungeon instance, and maybe a bit of snuggling and fumbling with pieces of each other's armour.

Then the player tells me she's 14 in real life.

Not fun. Nope. Not even in the slightest. Couldn't see my ass for the soles of my feet, that's how fast I left.