I think in some ways my writing has degenerated since I started RPing By that I just mean I feel more comfortable breaking the 'rules' of writing in order to best fit the specific voice of my characters. Some of them it feels more correct to use questionable grammar (in dialogue anyway!). I think I was also more concerned about how things came across when I was a new baby RPer, so I'd spend more time specifically chewing over phrasing to make sure that me and my characters weren't misconstrued. I don't mind so much now if my characters are, I think sometimes that is part of the fun. I do think I'm better at prose now than I was - early on I was far more focused on dialogue, and I think I did write inner thoughts but not really a lot of observation or reaction to the environment my character was in. Not that I always do that now but I'm more willing to expand on those things (though again it is character dependent for me!).

In the beginning, my RPs were super short (a few sentences or so). They are much longer and descriptive now, but this was the first site I ever RPed on.

*buckles up* *cracks knuckles* *wiggles in place*

I'm so glad my posts have evolved since I first joined this community. Pretty sure so many of you know that I started here when I was really young. I wrote one-liners and paragraph-long posts that were just about four sentences in length. I've tried going through archives before to stalk my 2011 posts but I can't bring myself to read them anymore They were that bad! But I love knowing that I've improved so much. Even my posts now aren't the same as my early 2016 posts, which was when I came back after a two-year hiatus. I've found that it's because of RPing with more members in this community, stalking charries, and reading that helped me do better (and be more comfortable) in roleplaying long form.

When I first started RPing, there were a mix of "long form" RPs and shorter, quickform RPs... A lot of the RPs in Knockturn Alley were the later, with a few of them being the first - with Ashlie, Kris, Courtney, and co we all did paragraphs etc.

But... the shortform RPs would have literally been something like we used on Twitter now with the character limit;

*confused* "What? How does that work?" *pushes hair behind ear*

Or some form of that. It was a very different style and I always found it rather jarring moving from one to the other... Now, I do it without even thinking. Whoops.

That's what I was remembering, Tori. Characters in the school were named after the RPer, and typically the username ("harrypotterulz ran into class and sat down") (that's it. that's the post.)

And watching people move from tiny short posts to these long epics now, and the emphasis on character development we've seen happen over time... it's a very cool journey.

I remember stalking these old posts when i was reading old lessons back when i was lesson planning and trying to figure out when stuff was taught / how it was taught / how i can improve upon it

i think i joined at the transition when longform had begun to really take over ?? It maybe wasn't as detailed as some of those posts people get into now but it was /getting/ there ....

The main difference I find with my RPing is that when I first started (so, late 2008) I would literally just write the post as the words came to me and submit it. It wasn't until I started playing my character Daxton (about mid 2015?) that I got into the habit of writing out a post, hitting preview, reading it, editing it, preview, read, edit, wash, rinse, repeat ad infinitum. I did this because I kind of had to put a lot more thought into the character and the sentence structure I used with him than with any of my previous ones. But then once I got into that habit with him, I ended up doing the same thing with every other character I play because it had made me so aware of how many little mistakes I make when I write, from grammatical errors to phrasing that can be entirely misconstrued.

I don't really know what I prefer; before, I could write out a post quickly and easily and submit it and move on to the next one, so my RPing was a lot faster, but my posts could also end up kind of nonsensical and I now literally get so anxious at the mere idea of posting something I haven't extensively proofread and reworked. Now, I generally prefer the final product of my posts, but the entire process takes a lot longer and it can be a whole Thing™ which can end up overwhelming, and I am always overly critical of myself while I'm writing (which can be a hindrance in RPing as it's really supposed to be for FUN).

I've definitely gotten better at fully reading and processing the posts before me/that I'm responding to before I post, whereas when I look back to my early RPing days my memories all seem so frenzied in my rush to get posts out that I wouldn't fully take in what was going on, and would miss vital parts of other people's posts.

General consistency is another thing. When I started out - and probably actually for quite a while afterwards - I was really not great at being consistent with my characters' lives. I often made a lot of stuff up as I went along, and then completely forgot certain details, or added in quite significant aspects to their lives after I'd been playing a character for a while. When I started RPing my first character (Jake) his bio was the bare minimum in regards to details, and the only place I was documenting anything to do with him was in his RP posts. I know a lot of people RP like that but I do not have a reliable enough memory for it, and ultimately I couldn't keep track of things even though he was the only character I played. These days I love writing character bios, and many of my characters have more than one (generally differing in how much detail is written), so I have something to refer back to and detailed established histories and all that fun helpful stuff.

Nowadays I usually bring the details of the environment into my posts - my character fiddling with the arm of a chair they're sitting in, scuffing the toe of their shoe against the stone floor, loosening their collar because of the stuffiness of the room, noticing and focusing on various trinkets and thingamabobs in their immediate vicinity, hearing a bird squawk outside the window - stuff that brings it back to wherever the RP is taking place. It doesn't really have any effect on the back-and-forth part of an RP, but I like to practice including details like that so I'm in the habit of it when I do other prose writing.

In contrast to my early RPing days, I'm also now in the habit of including ridiculous amounts of character introspection in my posts, which is partly why they can get so long - being concise (as you can see from this post) is not my forte.

I was also apart of the whole short-form RP stage (cringe example). While not many of my posts pre-2007 are archived anymore I distinctly remember using it basically how twitter is used now. I think at the time virtual chat rooms were heavier on the internet than today and forums were an extension of that so typing long posts wasn't as common. Since he was my first character and like mentioned the user name was our character's name basically so it was written in a first person point of view versus nowadays it's all third person.

Since then I do also make a conscious effort to make sure my posts are long enough in the previews. Making sure the format doesn't look too "uneven" if that makes sense. :xD: In an effort to fluff out a small post I'll try to add a subtle thought they may have to add to what they say in a conversation.

My first few years RPing, I feel that I definitely did my best to create a character that I thought would be well-liked and temperate. Unfortunately, that pushed me further and further down the Mary-Sue road, and caused me more stress than it should have. After Elise graduated, I told myself that some serious reallignments needed to be done.

I resorted and created my first Hufflepuff character, Brian Woods -- who is so much me that it hurts sometimes to RP him. I learned over time that the best way to shape your characters is to carve out a part of your soul to give them, so they all have some of my interests now.

I also wrote much shorter posts before -- they're longer now, but I hope to keep improving on that front and adding more introspection and responding to other people and their reactions. There's never going to be a time when I think "this is it, i've mastered writing", and you all as RPers inspire and motivate me always and forever

I want to quote and highlight this foreverrrrrr!!! Seriously. If SnitchSeeker had a like button, it would get one. Because honestly, i think that's one of the greatest things about the RP and what keeps me coming back and creating characters is how much we can keep learning and growing from the experiences. And from each other too.

I mean not to pinpoint 2004 at all, but the growth and change that has occurred since then is the prime example. Had we not been willing to do so, the RP would not be the dynamic place it is today. It might not even have existed for as long as it has, with its rich and dynamic history.

I echo almost what everyone wrote here so far!

When I first started, I was so excited about this new concept (RPing) so I didn't pay any attention to the character's backstory. I just played 'chaotically' in the first three terms until I started paying attention to my character's personality, reality and how they would react.

Writing-wise, don't even get me started I was an immature writer and I believe I'm improving the more I play. This is another reason why writing posts will forever be my favorite way of playing.

I wish I could say I'm better at RPing now than I was 'back then' (there are a few 'back then's for me), but I think my personal journey has been more of a rollercoaster than a continuous uphill climb towards being a "good RPer", whatever that means.

Right when I FIRST first started, I had no idea what I was doing. I was writing because I liked writing and I wanted to retain my fluency in English, and I was writing my own personality with a different name because I knew it would be easiest.

Rachel (middle name Danielle, so maybe not a wholly different name) was my learning curve. We started out with short, single paragraph posts. Very short sentences. Very "typical" reactions. When she hit fourth/fifth year, my posts swelled in size. I even remember this one RP in the library where my posts were so long you had to scroll for a bit to get to the end. I thought I'd reached peak RPing, that I was the best I could ever be. She became separate from the "what would I do in this situation", it was more "this is what Danielle would do, but Rachel's different here, Rachel would do ___". I flourished! The sky was the limit!

Then I left, and I came back, and there was twitter and multiple characters and more SS friends and a whole new world of RPing and SS and everything I thought I knew, I didn't. My posts condensed, my writing became less 'psuedo flowery' and I realised that I preferred it that way. Limiting myself made me consider each word more, each turn of phrase. There were physically less words in my posts, but I still got everything I wanted across. It made me understand why I was always so starstruck by Touz, because her posts were never long but they were ALWAYS filled to the brim with personality and clear intent and were a joy to read.

So I think that my post lengths and learning curves are more accordion-like than anything else, but my own understanding of how I RP, what I like to RP, how I get my point across, how I manage to pull forward my characters' personalities and quirks, that has been a slow but steady climb in the eleven years I've been playing around in this world.

Also, I'm still here to make sure I don't lose my fluency in English, so not much has changed in terms of general life goals ^___^

I think for me, my RPing has developed and changed several times over the past 11 years (a similar experience to Dani's, I think!). When I was a new member here, I had never RPed before and it looked fun, but slightly intimidating. I had a loose structure of a character and sort of jumped in to the RP without really developing her - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, sometimes a good way of fleshing out a character is to just start playing them.

My initial posts (like many, it seems!) were very short and not a whole lot of insight too them. But then I developed into some idea of longer is better, so an entire novel in one post must be the best, right?? Some of my posts were SO long, and I think in a way it helped to develop my characters and my writing, but honestly who wants to read all that at once lol? It started to feel chore-like to write my RP posts, and I'm afraid that's what it was like for people to have to read my walls of text. I honestly don't know why I made so much work for myself lol.

But I feel like I've come a long way since then. I feel like my RP posts are more concise while still maintaining some deeper information about my character - at least I hope so! And I've definitely learned quite a bit about breaking up my paragraphs for better legibility. I'm still learning and developing though, and I'm just thankful I have this community to grow and play in - because it's still so much fun for me.

Yes! I had Mrs.Murray-Felton as my UN, but my first Charrie was called Tori (who is the Matriarch of my family tree now, but she was a shy, quiet Slytherin back then).

There was also a phase where :: _____ :: was your action.

<3 Baby Joel posts hehehe

You are amazing at RPing <3 The way your characters evolve and grow is inspiring <3

Personally, I love your RP posts <3 They always give so much insight and I love them.


[ Also, here is an RP with a lot of the RPers I RPed with in 2005 while I was a mod the first time around. OMG. So many names that I remember and still talk to / have on FB. This community is amazing... but yeah, it was in the 1-2 sentence RP phase I think. ]

Oh, wow. Where do I start? I had never rped before coming to SS, so I had no clue what I was doing. Going into the rpg, I tried to approach writing posts the same way I did fiction writing (and still do in some ways). I remember I had trouble with godmodding at first, which looking back, I think was a combination of my writing approach and FOMO. Like I said, I didn’t really understand the way rping worked at the time, and I was afraid that if someone else didn’t interact with my charrie before the scene/TL moved on, my charrie would be stuck in that moment… so I tried to move things along on my own. I had to get used to not moving all of the characters across the page screen, and it was quite an adjustment.

*seconds this* I had the same problem with trying to create charries who would be well-liked, and it led to me not properly exploring my charries out of fear that it would make them unpopular. That was definitely the case for Katja and Fiyero, the first two charries I played in the Ministry and the school, respectively. My posts for them tended to be short and action-oriented, rather than giving insight into their thoughts and emotions. Gaston was a learning curve for me. When I started out playing him, I fell into the same trap of trying to make him well-liked. I modeled him after the types of characters I tend to gravitate toward in other fandoms, thinking that would make others like him too. What I didn’t count on was him taking on a life of his own and going in a completely different direction than I anticipated. It got to the point that there was no way I could play him authentically without giving details of his thoughts/emotions, and playing him helped me feel more comfortable developing my charries’ emotions and focus less on making them liked.

First of all, I LOVE reading the hilarious first-days-of-SS posts. Is there anything better?

Secondly, I used to take the RP and all my characters much more seriously. I'm just here for fun and not for responsibilities now, so that's liberating. Also, when I was newer, I feel like I played such idealized versions of me. Everything was so dramatic and everyone else's characters had to be reacted to. Though, tbh, I'm still a little bit dramatic... at least I stopped bolding my character's dialogue! Ahaha.

One thing I can't seem to stop doing is putting Easter eggs in my character names though. I have at least two RABs, ART, DOT, BOG, WWW, DMF, ummm and i think one of my first charries even used my grandmother's maiden name. I like when their names reference something that I like in real life, like a favorite person or a play I've read many, many times or even just the X-Men because yolo?