estirose

Here I go pseudo-academic for a bit and try to figure out things about RPs, playing styles, and the gift economy of fandom. Um. Please bear with me?

Those who know me well know I’ve been getting a tad frustrated with playing in CFUD, and I could never ever quite put my finger on why. Thanks to a chance conversation, I’m finally figuring it out.

To give you some background, while I’ve played in pan-fandom RPs before, they’ve generally been small. I’ve been in one fandom-specific dressing room (kamendressing, which spawned Song and co). I’ve always felt at home, which was why when I jumped to CFUD, I expected to have no problem. I’ve also been involved in fandom in some shape or form since 1987. I’ve been a prolific fanfic writer since my late teens, ever since I found the internet in college.

In my experience (and people reading this, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), in fandom, the gift economy keeps things going. People contribute, by writing fanfic, by drawing fanart, contributing to discussions, and maintaining resources. In return, other people write fanfic for them, respect them, give them feedback. Keep fandom going. It’s not required, but it’s certainly as hell appreciated. In some ways, the gift economy of fandom can be paying it forward. Keeping fandom going by writing fic, drawing fanart, and just being inspired by someone else’s works and giving the gift of their work to other people.

In the RPs I’ve been in previously, it works similarly. My character jumps another character and we thread. In return, at some point, that character jumps mine, and we thread. It’s the same idea as the gift economy above: one person gives the other person recognition by returning the favor of jumping them back. I’ve made the best friendships with people this way – our characters jump each other back and forth, I get to know them, and we end up chatting with each other. I’m still friends with people I met in RPs that are long gone.

(This whole thing can be abused, by fandom and those outside fandom – for example, people only reviewing works if they get a (glowing) review in return. Or expecting a review in return for doing a review. Heck, I’m seeing it on the ABNA boards with people in the quarterfinals grumping about people not reviewing back! I think for me, the ideal in the gift economy is that if it inspires you, if you can’t pay it back, pay it forward. Be nice about it. Don’t expect people to reciprocate, but you’ll build your best relationships when they do. Hell, I’ve had two people in two different RPs tell me that fic I wrote inspired the way they played their characters. To me, that’s part of the gift economy; they’re paying it forward by playing characters that other people will enjoy.)

In CFUD, I’m having a terrible time adjusting (and mind you, I’ve been in the game a year) because I’m expecting the same gift economy give-and-take I’m used to my previous RPs and in fandom. And CFUD (this may be true of other large pan-fandom RPs, CFUD just happens to be my only large one) is not that way. People are not jumping me back when I expect them to, which my previous experience with RPs and fandom has lead me to expect. Which is giving me a hard time connecting with the *people* who play in CFUD, which means that I’m getting few people (other than a few close friends in my particular group) close to me, which means I’m not connecting the way I think I should. (See my philosophy above about connecting with people.) Which frustrates me because I’m tossing my character out with no return “gift” – that is, when I make posts, people don’t “connect”. They don’t jump me. Maybe I’m a bit selfish, but in my experience, RPs are where it isn’t “selfish” to expect a response in return. It’s how I’m used to building CR. Which is apparently not how you build CR in this game.

(This probably doesn’t help other RP issues stemming from my mental issues, such as the fact I’m waaay too bloody close in personality to my character that I take things too personally when it comes to RP, but that’s a whole other bloody can of worms.)

I’ve babbled far too much here, but maybe it’ll eventually help me figure out how to be finally happy in a game where things aren’t working the way I’m expecting to. (Yeah, mental issues again.)