Writing Class, My Brother's Forum

Last time I talked about this, I'd registered and gained access to my online writing school, but I hadn't gained access to my online classroom. Now I have, and I got my first assignment, due this Friday. Got my first lesson, too. There are ten students and four teachers registered in the online school, but the school features magazine, short story, and memoir classes, and I have no way of knowing who's in my specific class. I figure there's more than just myself, as one of the teachers opened an introductions thread in my classroom. As of this posting, I'm the only person not in a position of authority to have posted anything in a place accessible to me. The school looks and functions much like a Proboards, so I'm familiar with it, which is nice. The first lesson was thorough and made a good degree of sense and I should be capable of handling this first assignment without difficulty. This is the first class they've had, so they're liable to make mistakes, though I haven't seen one yet. It's a little intimidating to be using writing as the medium for base communication within a writing class, especially when the only people who've made themselves open to discussion are your writing teachers.

I didn't receive any notice from that employer, so I'm going on the assumption that I didn't get the job.

I've been posting on my brother's forum's roleplay. If you don't know what a roleplay, or RP is, then all you need to know is that it's an interactive story. In most online roleplays you take command of a character, and a GM (game master) dictates the events and a number of plot-relevant characters, but my brother's is unique in that you don't just post as a character. Each participant takes turns writing large portions of the story, including other people's characters. When writing for someone else's character, though, they're just left with general guidelines, and later on, the creator of that character edits in their specific dialogue. There's also theme music, and each character's text is coloured differently. Also, one person can dictate more than one character, and all participants discuss what direction the RP should take and how to get to it ahead of time, so that the end product actually seems more like a structured story, and not just a game. Also, the characters are balanced and developed partly to benefit the story, not just for self-insertion.

I feel a bit like an advertisement right now, but I'll admit I'm having fun. Roleplaying isn't something one usually admits. It's a term synonymous with self-insert fantasy, an indicator of being unsatisfied with one's own life and trying to escape into another, as well as seeming like a juvenile, make-believe form of play.

But this is more like interactive creative writing, when self-insertion is taken off the table and things like endgoals and character balancing is prioritized. I'm sure that's it's own brand of pathetic, but I'm kind of taking courses on this right now, so...

Anyway, check out the character sprites that my brother made for me. Yes, my character's name is "Start". All our main characters are based on our usernames. Yes, I know I said self-insertion was not prioritized, but... shut up. Character Start is still not the same as username Start.



Admittedly, those aren't exactly original works. Here were the component characters that everything in on that list came from:



But still, not bad, right? I know that "Young Start" is just a recolour, "Mask Start" is just the metal guy's head cropped onto the shoulder pad guy's body, and "Curse Start" is just the old guy's head cropped onto the shoulder pad guy's body, but check out regular Start. That is the purple kimono guy's face, the shoulder pad guy's body, and the old guy's goatee, scar,and ponytail, and the skin tone and clothing colour are original. And look at Golem Start. All of the stone texture-angling beneath the mustache had to be done from scratch, and the additional facial hair needed to be done from scratch, too.

Also, I'll post his lawyer sprites when they come up. Yeah, half the time, we're all lawyers, for some reason. Plus I've got two more characters that I get to command, and whose sprites are in the making.