[TartoonHand94]

A lot of questions I wanted to ask were already asked by now, so here's one I haven't seen asked yet:

• Any advice on making a character with a crush compelling?
  Like ways to avoid the pitfalls of the Stalker With a Crush, Nice Guys, or an extreme, Yandre tropes. How do you make a one-sided crush charming instead of creepy?

[Mari]

Hey I've got new graphics~! Thanks Tartoon.

Sept 17, 2021 17:59:45 GMT -8 PolarStarQuote said:

One more additional question from your good Love-fu Pupil, the Quotester


Good ways to play/Write for a Dominant Romantic partner? 

Alright... So, let me be clear. The only relationships I've had with dominant men have been abusive. Nor do I consider myself particularly good at writing normal men. So this is a weaker area for me. That being said though, I can give... a little insight.

The difference between Chad laying an arm around you and Choppun doing the EXACT same thing is that Chad makes you feel safe and Choppun makes you feel very unsafe.

And the secret to that is context. Chad has previously established a respect for you and you felt comfortable being close to him prior to him doing anything. Choppun tried to show you his favorite video game "I stomp scantily clad women flat and slide them under my neighbors door." last week, which he swears has an amazing plot.

My best guess is that the secret to playing a dominant man without going down the road of abuse, is to heavily channel those protective vibes. Does that sound old fashioned and patriarchal? Yes. Does that make it wrong? No, not really. If protecting and respecting women is the only thing you take from traditional masculinity, especially in the context of a combat centric roleplay where not every woman can be a total badass who don't need no man, that's about the best thing you could take from it.

There's probably also something to be said for assertiveness, ambition, strength, and risk-taking. Note: When I say risk-taking, I mean doing things that would be historically risky, such as going hunting, not modern risks such as recklessly spending money. Even girls who like risk-takers tend not to like modern risks.

Sept 17, 2021 17:59:45 GMT -8 PolarStarQuote said:

I would also like to ask if there are any specific tricks to write for a *female* Dominant Romantic Partner. Certain abilities that Girls can do that Men cant, Or even just general Lesbian Romance Power-plays,

Before I continue, I feel the need to mention that I am not that personality type. I fit into the "both" section of that statistic and always have. Just so y'know where I'm coming from.

My super critical advice would be to consider the stigmas against women with such personality types and how dealing with them must be for the character in question. Assuming this character is from a world anything like ours, they probably get a lot of crap for it. I know I sure did and I was only halfway there. I got bullied into submission CONSTANTLY just for behaving similarly to how boys behaved. NOBODY wanted to deal with assertive/competitive/not-here-to-cater-to-you Marin. Entire friend groups would just flip like dimes because they didn't want to deal with that. And again, I stress, I learned those behaviors from the same boys who turned on me when I started imitating them. It really is just a double standard.

Even just beating people at video games while having a feminine screenname is enough to make some people FURIOUS. One time I proved that to a server moderator to avoid disciplinary action. I told him I bet I could keep my mouth shut and do nothing but play the game while he spectates me to make sure I'm not doing anything weird and he'd still get a bunch of people raging at me and demanding he do something about me. I won that bet. It was that predictable.

What I did was learn how to navigate those social expectations and restrain/hide the part of me to the best of my ability. I assume that an even more dominant personality type woman would probably do the same just for their own sake. Because y'know, it's not a matter of being strong at that point. Nobody is strong enough that harassment doesn't wear them down.

And my guess is that they probably need ways to test the waters and see who's okay with them being themselves. For me that's always been flirting/jokes. When I joke about violence, kirbying people and girl powery stuff it's not JUST because I find it amusing. That's a part of it, but it has the dual function of allowing me to vibe check people and quickly get a feel for who's going to be lame without commiting to anything based on the reactions. Silence/shunning/invisibility/cold shoulder being the worst possible response, followed by negativity. Playing along being the best possible response followed by surprise or amusement.

And when such a character finds people who are cool with them, I would assume they would want to keep them around and build a friend group of cool people they can fall back on and enjoy being with. THAT'S my most critical advice to playing a dominant woman. I know that has very little to do with selling her dominance, but it has a lot to do with realistic psychology and believable portrayals.

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Onto that other thing though. There's obviously nothing a dominant woman can do that people of other personality types or genders CAN'T do, but there are things that will definitely be received differently. For example:

Putting on some really striking and gorgeous makeup / clothes to intimidate others with beauty.

Marking other characters using lipstick and a kiss. This is mine, and you know it because of the orange lipstick mark on their neck.

Marshmallow Hell Trope. Not something exclusive to dominant women frankly, but still something they can do. Not even necessarily a romantic thing. It's just fun occasionally.

Speaking of anime fanservice tropes that aren't actually 100% wrong, if one character is significantly shorter than the other, the boob hat trope may apply instead. The name's self-descriptive, and is when a hug gives the shorter character a new hat they may or may not want~!

Sitting on people, aka asserting dominance, has a stronger vibe when girls do it. Like guys can do this too, it just won't hit quite as hard. The dominant angle would be that you don't necessarily have to get off. The most extreme version of this would be a horsey back ride, or I suppose a human-pulled charriot as a tangentially related example, though you'd need the cooperation of the other character to do those last two.

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Lesbian specific pairings... I can't give you too many unique things a dominant woman can do in a lesbian ship that she can't also do in a straight ship, but I can highlight a few themes for you that are common enough:

Obliviousness to being liked. Even girls who know they're gay often struggle with doubts about other girls liking them at first. Realistically most characters should assume everyone is straight, even when they themselves aren't. Yes, even when it's me playing the character being evaluated. I notice when people meta that my characters are probably gay and I don't like it actually. Do not pay any mind to the lady behind the curtain. ||D As mentioned previously, this is basically a meme in lesbian circles.

Girls know what other girls like. Experience being one can help some lesbians make large strides bypassing the learning phases of how to make other girls feel good which can be a source of frustration for straight couples. This, of course, requires you to be OOCly familiar and is tough to pull off in RP because of even if you know, your partner might be a dude IRL or a girl who is just oblivious to the attempt. Even I don't count on being able to pull this off as a result. =/

It is common for lesbians to view the attractiveness of girls differently than straight guys do. The biggest example I can think of that I've noticed I'm not alone in is that lesbians are a lot more used to what a woman's body looks like because they own one? ...So faux nudity such as skintight bodysuits tends to be significantly less interesting to them than it is for straight guys. We're more appreciative of how other girls look normally than we are concerned with what they're hiding. We also have built in detectors for ridiculous outfits, which can be summed up as "If I wore this to a cosplay convention, would I still feel embarrassed wearing it? ...If yes, it was probably designed by a dude."

Some lesbians are insecure about dating bi girls because they're worried they'll leave them for a man. It's not an omnipresent sentiment but it sure is a thing. Some of it's because it has actually happened before and they're sore about it. It's definitely happened to me, though I don't believe I hold it against anyone.

Beautification can be mutual bonding instead of one-sided.

Big sister vibes are an acceptable aesthetic for a lesbian couple to rock.

Fashion coordination. If you're the dominant woman in a lesbian relationship, you can hand your partner a pretty dress and tell them to put it on significantly easier than you could if your partner was a dude. You can decide to have matching outfits, thematic outfits--oh hey we're bikers today, put this on and let's go ride through town. Just... DON'T put them in any cringey objectifying / threatening T-shirts, for the love of Arceus. ||D

Sept 19, 2021 9:55:21 GMT -8 TartoonHand94 said:

A lot of questions I wanted to ask were already asked by now, so here's one I haven't seen asked yet:

• Any advice on making a character with a crush compelling?
  Like ways to avoid the pitfalls of the Stalker With a Crush, Nice Guys, or an extreme, Yandre tropes. How do you make a one-sided crush charming instead of creepy?

As I mentioned with Quote up there, the difference between Chad and Choppun is context.

The criminal pitfall of the Nice Guy trope is an inability to take no for an answer with grace and decency. Nobody hates nice guys because they're awkward. They hate them because they flip out and start spitting sexist slurs if you say no. Additionally, love and affection are not transactions. You do not insert a compliment or a nice gift and get hugs and kisses. That entire mindset is wrong and Nice Guys typically suffer from the Dunning Kreuger effect where they think girls are stupid and they're really clever and nobody ever notices they're acting weird? Fairly easy to avoid in practice.

I probably don't need to teach you how to avoid the yandere tropes. That's so over the top it's basically impossible to invoke on accident. Just don't murder, maim, otherwise violence or or kidnap any competition you have for your crush's attention or your crush themselves--*Glances at Bowser* wait oh god oh FUC--

Anyway, here's the easy way to make a wholesome crush.

1) Take a very close friendship and add protective big brother or affectionate sister vibes. In other words, you can ascend to an extra close friendship at most, assuming they're fine with it. As close as they're comfortable with, I should say.

2) Being rejected doesn't damage the friendship. Don't fulfill people's fears about rejecting others by having the character drift away from them and become more distant than they were prior to asking about a relationship.

There. Done. The rest is just writing a good friendship where your character finds the other attractive, and hopefully they find a way to express that that the other is okay with, even if they aren't dating.