@bored said:
I think there's also something to be said for getting at a character's emotional or mental state in the text of a pose beyond 'Name frowns' or so on, to facilitate accurate interaction (this gets at the classic characters are better than their players trope). Players are generally good at neither typing out the specific nuances of facial expression nor at interpreting them from others' texts, while characters might be good at these things.
I share your approach to RP as a writing exercise. Really, how would one describe specific emotions without resorting to some degree of metapose? I've tried and found it impossible in some cases. In real life, we sense that a person is sad, bothered, upset, without consciously going through the physical clues (unless one is on the autistic spectrum).
Most people will claim this is because we pick up facial micromovements on a subconscious level. I personally think that's a bullshit explanation on the level of homeopathy. I have weird views on this, but I'll refrain from going off on that tangent. There is a podcast which goes into it, here's a link:
http://podbay.fm/show/953290300/e/1422586800?autostart=1 (About a woman with a debilitating disorder that makes her feel, directly, what people around her are feeling. A type of super-empathy, apparently hereditary.)
I use metapose as a tool to build mood and atmosphere. I'm not going to describe in minute detail how someone's eyebrows and eyes are positioned in order to describe that they're sad. I'll say something like, "she's sad, it's in her expression." Even if it's an outright thought-pose you can't react to, if it brought a sense of mood, or a creative spark, it has contributed to the scene. With the caveat that it has to be well written.
Mainly, if the pose I've written feels like an awesome piece of writing, I'll send it in without regard to any unspoken rules. RP is often a constricting medium for writing, and I welcome good opportunities to break out of the mold.
One of the best characters I ever played with was Ike@HM, whose poses were full of metaposing. He played a film noir detective.
