Life as a Roleplayer

Everyone knows how people go on Facebook. But, have you seen people that go on and create accounts for fictional characters from books and/or movies? Well, these people are called roleplayers, and they can either be fun or a pain to have around. There are different types of roleplayers, and each should be treated specially, not as if they’re a menace. ~extends hand to you~ Come walk with me, through the world and mind of the roleplayer.

No one exactly knows when the idea of roleplaying came out. It just sort of happened. Also, you never know who’s behind these accounts. It could be a person who likes the character, or it could be some crazy psychopath. You never know. Unless it’s your friend and you know for sure that they’re the one in control of the account. Point is, usually you don’t know. This is why you shouldn’t ever give someone your information when they’re roleplaying. Now you don’t have to go and change your information section, but just don’t directly give it to them.

Roleplayers usually enact scenes from the books or movies they pertain to, or they create new ones along with some other people. Like improvising, or improv for short. They can be fun, but beware; sometimes they’ll get annoyed if the wrong amount of drama is exerted. This can be bad. I once got ganged up on because I was apparently a “drama queen” and it wasn’t fun. Also, when enacting the scenes, they use symbols to surround actions that would occur. This is shown in the first paragraph. Some of the more common ones that are used are: *, ~, -, and the occasional _. I personally enjoy using the ~ symbol, because it does not come up as bolded ( * ) or underlined ( _ ) when being used in Facebook chat.
Now, there are four different types of roleplayers.

- First, there’s the movie character. These tend to be happy-go-lucky people who liked the movie, and they usually have a lot of pictures because they were taken when filming or they are of the actor him/herself. They can be nice, but it is sometimes hard to get the actual character’s personality down, so most act as a mix of themselves and the character from what they know of them. They are the second most unpredictable of all roleplayers.

- Second, there’s the book character. These are characters from books that people fell in love with (either the character, the book, or sometimes both). The people behind them have everything they need to act exactly as the characters would have, especially because the book shows a lot about them. Most of these roleplayers think, act, and speak just as the characters would from the book. They might or might not have some pictures. Some tend to be artists and draw what they believe the character looks like, while some upload random pictures of people with similar descriptions. Some people only put up one or two, then ignore the photos altogether. It’s really up to the roleplayer for this type.

- Third, there is the hybrid. These are special roleplayers, whose book has been turned into a movie as well. They have plenty of pictures and a great knowledge of the character (most of the time), but they can be very unpredictable people. It all depends on the person at this point, especially because they may or may not know about the character as much as others do. Some are well knowledgeable and speak kindly, while others are cruel. They are the third most unpredictable people for roleplaying so to speak.

- Finally, there is the add-on. These are people who have created people that somehow, somewhere fit into the book and/or movie, though they are not actually part of it. They create a person of their own, and in doing so they simply add more to the story. These can be fun to be and talk to, as they are not limited to whatever the people are given by a book or movie. Unfortunately, they are the most unpredictable of all the roleplayers. Considering that they are basically just people under different names, it all depends on the person behind the account to determine the personality and attitude of the character. Some are extremely nice, while others… ~shudders~ Let’s just say you should hope to meet kindly ones and not cruel, selfish, and/or mean ones. They aren’t very friendly.

As everyone knows, people are all different. You may come across a roleplayer who thinks and acts just like the character, and that’s great if you’re into chatting with the character from the book and/or movie. However, some of them can be real assholes. They can be your friend one minute, and hate your guts the next. I’ve known many a roleplayer who have been kind then cruel. Another point, sometimes people change. I knew one once who was really nice. He was a Ponyboy Curtis from “The Outsiders” and we became good friends. Then one day, a girl came into the equation. I wont mention her name, even though I would love to, but she was mean. She was a roleplayer too, one of the add-on kinds. She corrupted him, then continued to steal the entire gang (of roleplayers from “The Outsiders”) from me, and then turned each and every one of them against me. I tried to become friends with her, but she hated me from the beginning for some unknown reason. I tried to see past her outer self, to try and find some good within her, but none showed, no matter how hard I searched. I know this may sound corny to some, but it’s the truth. I just wish she would have given me a chance, and not shattered the roleplay world that I was happy spending time in. So beware when you chat with them, for some can be unusually mean (or insane in her case).

Anyone can roleplay, and it doesn’t even have to be on Facebook! I know guys who roleplay for guys, and I know guys who roleplay for girls! I also know girls who roleplay girls and some who roleplay as guys! But it’s very uncommon for guys to roleplay as girls. Very uncommon indeed. It’s all about the characters in the story for these cases (which is why you usually don’t see many add-ons with opposite genders of the creators), so it really doesn’t matter! But sometimes it’s obvious when girls are guys or guys are girls, because either the boy will not understand girl issues that come up, or the girl will talk as a girl would, revealing to everyone that the character is very unrealistic. So one must be careful with word choice when roleplaying like that. Also, you don’t have to be on Facebook (though I prefer the Facebook roleplaying to other websites) to roleplay! It can also be on websites dedicated to it, and even twitter! Though in my opinion, Facebook is the best route to go, considering that most roleplaying websites are either hard to find, suck, or both and twitter gets annoying quickly considering it’s all about just posting pictures and statuses, not chatting.

Does this sound like fun to you? Because let me tell you, it can be real fun. I actually have a roleplay account, but I won’t tell what book and/or movie or what character it is. I won’t even tell you what gender he/she is. You’ll never know! But look on the bright side, if you knew then that would ruin the ‘magic of roleplaying’ that we roleplayers work so hard to maintain. So don’t be a roleplay hater, come and get to know a couple of us before!