#starraft

[doctordouzan-blog]

Tales From RP - Chapter I: The Gundam Regret

Welcome back to the tales of a really bored RPer who wrote a lengthy post about some commonly found RP terms and some basic pieces of advice. I’m still extremely bored out of mind with nothing to reply to, so I decided to take a trip down memory lane. And for the sheer hell of it, I’m going to drag you all along under the pretense of teaching you lessons that’ll help your RP experience.  Today’s lesson? Appreciate what you have. My roleplaying career started on Battle.net after my paternal aunt casually gave me my cousin’s Diablo disc. At first I played only by myself and avoided the online. But after my vacation was over and I was back home, my dad allowed me on the internet with the game. I called myself Cursed_Angel, and didn’t do much at first. Eventually, I found my way to the Town Square channel, which was a stomping ground for people bored out of their mind, and was often where multiverse RP happened.  (Definition time! Multiverse, at least back in those days, meant an RP that combined several different universes at once. So instead of roleplaying exclusively, say, Marvel, you also tossed in Card Captor Sakura, Gundam, Sailor Moon, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc. A Multiverse character is either: a; a character that exists in a multiverse RP, or b; a character who exists in several different universes at once. Example of the latter definition: My character Rin Anderson is a multiverse character. She’s a dimension hopper that is constantly trying to find her way home, and winds up in different universes, where she abides by the rules of that universe and explores it before gaining enough energy to leave again.  Multiverse RPs can be insanely complicated. Each universe has their own core rules, such as different rules on vampires and werewolves, magic vs science, telepathy allowed or not allowed, technology advanced vs Bronze Age equivalent, etc. Generally, if it is a Multiverse RP, it is assumed that the rules exist simultaneously and overlapping, and not at all. Confusing? Yeah, it’s basically a free-for-all. The definition of all of these could have changed by now, but that was, at the time, the definitoins of Multiverse and Multiverse Characters.) For whatever reason, my Battle.net server had a huge following of Gundam fans. We had clans as well, consisting of Gundam characters, mostly from Gundam Wing, and G Gundam. My little Cursed (Yes, her first name was Cursed) was an amnesiac little flower who flitted around with the Wolves, the Gundam Wing crew, the Shuffle Alliance, and even the Zoids pals. Eventually, she gained a Liger Zoid, and a Gundam that used a traditional cockpit as well as the G Gundam cockpit, based on whatever her needs were for fighting, and eventually even the Zero programming in the traditional cockpit. Looking back, I’m actually fairly proud of that achievement. Cursed never claimed to have those off the bat. Those were all gifts given to her by the other RPers. She gained the Zoid after repairing it with the tiny Zoid gang, and her Gundam was constructed for her by Duo Maxwell and Sai Sai Ci. She even ended up as a sixth member of the Shuffle Alliance, though I can’t for the life of me remember what she had. I want to say she was another Joker alongside Argo, and again, this was something the group decided on altogether. I was one of the few OCs to attain items like those without actually Mary Sueing/Godmoding and claiming I had them initially. They were items granted to her by the canon characters that she earned. If I could find a way to revive Cursed, I would. She is without a doubt one of my all time favorite characters, even though I cringe at how preteen Kayla RP’d, and what caused me to retire her.  I mostly interacted with.. I think it was Kyoji_Kashu_, Duo_Maxwell, HeeroYuy SaiSaiChi_, and Domon_Kashu- or something like that. All the hyphens and underscores that RPers could love. We had pretty much a full set of characters and even duplicates, but we were the core players. Domon and Cursed were stalwart allies who fought in several battles together. Duo and Cursed were inseparable and terrifying troublemakers that should have never been left to their own devices, ever. Sai and Cursed bonded as two youngsters, a sibling bond between the two, and it was Sai who installed the additional cockpit into the Cursed Gundam- yes, that’s what we called it- to allow her to use the latex-loving piloting style of G Gundam. Heero eventually grew to treat Cursed like a little sister, and was the one that installed Zero on Cursed during some epic RP plot that I wish I could recall, but I think it came after Cursed ended up piloting Wing Zero when him and Quatre couldn’t.  The character that I enjoyed RPing with the most, however, was Kyoji.  Cursed and Kyoji clashed several times, enemies to the bitter end, as she sought to protect Domon and Rain from him. The fights between the two were pretty epic and Cursed, being the novice, hardly ever won. As we progressed through the plot and we did all that crazy ‘Oh he’s not REALLY evil, it’s just the Gundam!’ bizniz, the two grew romantic. The two had a bond that was incredibly deep, considering how novice of RPers we were at the time. As I grew better at RPing and Cursed’s skills grew from combat- like a proper character, she learned, adapted, and trained hard to become better- I grew cocky.  I ended up betraying my character’s personality. Cursed was a soft-spoken girl, not unlike me myself. I was severely bullied growing up, and had little-to-no confidence. Cursed, meanwhile, was accepted in ways I could never be, and someone that I think in the end, I wanted to be like. I began to project my own insecurities onto her, and twisted the personality of my beloved character into something grotesque. She became arrogant, cocky, full of bravado, when before she was the girl that ran after Domon asking to train, or listened in rapt attention when Heero repaired his gundam.  It wasn’t until I made the biggest mistake of my time RPing on Battle.net that I realized the path I had gone down. Cursed was interacting with Kyoji, and while I never can remember how it got to this point, I clearly remember Cursed boldly saying that she was far too strong to need Kyoji, and he was holding her back, that she was beyond his skill level. She destroyed him, and took off without a care, an act completely out of character for her, driven by my own need to be the best. Even worse, was my cockiness went OOC. I basically told him I no longer needed him, that I could RP with whoever I wanted, and that he was beneath me. That was the first time that I realized that my words could have an impact on the person behind the screen. Kyoji and Domon were played by real-life brothers, and Kyoji stopped logging in on that account. We had multiple accounts that we logged in and out of. I had Rikku from FFX2, a custom named Katsume, and Cursed. (I think at one point I had a Sai Sai Ci as well, and even tried my hand at a Heero. I have files somewhere with my old usernames but I found the e-mails I used to send to my boyfriend asking him to log on when I wasn’t able to, so I didn’t lose them.)  I begged Domon to let him know that I didn’t mean it, that I was sorry. Kyoji logged in once and while we talked, it was clear that he wasn’t going to be coming back, that he was gone.  My favorite RP partner was gone, and I stopped logging in for some time. When I came back, our Wing clan, our Shuffle Alliance, was gone. Sometimes Duo or Sai would log back in, but they had all made new accounts and moved on.  It was never confirmed that I was the cause of it, but to this day, I still believe that my cockiness, my desire to be the best, my ego, broke up the group. When members started leaving, others left with them. We lost some of our most active members because I couldn’t control myself. I wasn’t happy with Cursed as a character, she had to be the absolute best. She had to be more, everything I could never be.  I had an amazing Multiverse RP where my character had achieved what very few OCs could. I had fun, I had friends, and I always had someone to RP with, or play a round of Diablo with. Hell, when I got Starcraft later, I always had someone to play games with.  If there is anything I want those who read this to understand, it’s to be happy with what you have. Be grateful for the partners you have, and remember that they’re people behind a screen. Remember that your words can have an impact, and that someone could become hurt by what you do or say. Don’t try to project your own insecurities, your personality, your ego onto your character. It never works out, and always makes a mess of things.  If you reach the point where you have a community that is full, a community of friends that respect and care for you, treasure that shit always, and don’t let it go. Be apart of it, be respectful, and remember that whatever you do or don’t do has consequences.  And Kyoji, if by some miracle you ever read this and remember Cursed_Angel from Battle.net, I don’t think I could ever apologize enough. I miss RPing with you, and someday, I hope I can find you again so that way, I can tell you how wrong I was to say such things. I was lucky to have you as a friend, and not a day goes by that I don’t regret what I did, or what I lost. Someday, I hope to bring back Cursed, maybe even in a Gundam setting, but I know it will never be as amazing as our crazy, zany plots in Town Square.  As always, feel free to ask if you have any questions regarding RP, or are just bored out of your mind. Next time we’ll be checking out one of the following stories. Got one you want to hear first? Send me an ask and tell me which one you want to hear, or Twit at me on the Tweeter. Otherwise, I’ll pick one at random.  -”Kuroda, Tsunade, and the Best Boyfriend Ever (Not.)” -”When Your Demon from Dragon Age is Ivy from Soul Calibur (Wiki Edition!)” -”All My Characters are Besties and Text All The Time!” -”*Giggle* *Laughs* *Snorts* *Giggles* *Chuckles* *Laughs softly* (…What am I Replying to?!)” -”I Got Out of Hell and Turned Super Saiyajin! (All By Myself!)” -"King Douchebag and the Pink Vanilla Sky” - Starring Fuma Kotaro!  -And many more!