Advice/Help Advice welcomed: when doubling is one sided

[CrimsonnClover]

Hi Rpn.
For all of my roleplays I double. I put equivocal effort into planning for both pairs, ooc, and the post itself.

Finding others who only favor their pair is a bit common, and I do understand it. However, I have a friend (who honestly under normal circumstances and the extent that she favors her pair, I should have already dropped by now) who even after I brought it up, writes paragraphs more for their character, ands
ends me dozens of messages a day about their oc.
I have brought it up once, and they advised they would change. But now I hey another six paragraphs about her character and three about her make, while a whole paragraph is literally a copy and paste of what I wrote. The quality is pure shit also, I'm comparison to her females.

I would feel a bit of guilt about ditching your girl, because I know she loves our rp, but at this point I feel defeated, and I'm not going to keep the rp going just to appease her side of things.

Any ideas how I can bring this up a second time, to a senestive individual? I'm so damn passive that I'm trying to talk things out more with my partners.

 

[rae2nerdy]

To be clear the issue is
1. She is not replying to the content of your post
2. She is focusing on one of her characters over the other.

Is this meant to be a character exchange? So she plays a character for you / you play a character for her? Or are is it a plot with four distinct characters that have their own story lines?

 

[Crayons]

Imo this is always going to be a problem with doubling. No one is going to be as invested in their partner's OC as they are in their own, or as invested in playing the canon love interest. It's more like a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" transaction scenario than two people genuinely wanting to build a story together.

I think to a certain extent you just have to take that into account, and so does she. Obviously she loves her OC more than she loves playing your side, so idk I'd probably keep playing her side if you're enjoying it and find another person to play the pairing that you like.

 

[LetsDoTheFork]

Honestly I can relate to this in some cases and it doesn't feel great, I hope you find more rps where this doesn't happen and which you can fully engage with. I'm not completely sure how to improve this situation, but perhaps you can just be honest with this person again. In OOC talk, be very clear that the way things are going is making you lose interest in the RP, and if they don't think this a serious issue then maybe it's not worth continuing with them. Maybe you can even demonstrate your point by replying to the rp with less engagement and priority (to see if the person has a 'can dish it but can't take it' attitude ). If they really don't listen, it might be a good idea to just move on from that particular RP altogether (I know this is difficult and a last resort, but sometimes it's better this way if the RP is giving you more grief than enjoyment !)
Good luck!

 

[rae2nerdy]

I think it’s more so an issue of romance writing in general. As in most narratives there is a “main pairing” that is the focus and side characters who get together are usually given less screen time or narrative importance.

So doing it for roleplay is gonna be difficult because you can’t really base it on anything in published works. And in my experience roleplay romance is heavily influenced/inspired by romance in published works (from movies to books).

I think one way to prevent this is to give the characters a narrative outside of romance that is shares the spotlight.

Ex. The women are a team of superheroes just getting started in the caped community. The men are hero and sidekick who are also trying to make a name for themselves.

The two teams meet up in costume and have their arguments and out of costume go on dates and what not. This would give you a conflict that involves all the characters equally and a reason for all the characters to hang out together without the need to focus on one pairing above the others.

(now obviously that’s a genre specific example but just making it so you and your partners characters have a reason to interact without romance is important. It could help curb the tendency to focus on one pairing if there are other things bringing the characters together.)

 

[Crayons]

I think it’s more so an issue of romance writing in general. As in most narratives there is a “main pairing” that is the focus and side characters who get together are usually given less screen time or narrative importance.

So doing it for roleplay is gonna be difficult because you can’t really base it on anything in published works. And in my experience roleplay romance is heavily influenced/inspired by romance in published works (from movies to books).

I think one way to prevent this is to give the characters a narrative outside of romance that is shares the spotlight.

Ex. The women are a team of superheroes just getting started in the caped community. The men are hero and sidekick who are also trying to make a name for themselves.

The two teams meet up in costume and have their arguments and out of costume go on dates and what not. This would give you a conflict that involves all the characters equally and a reason for all the characters to hang out together without the need to focus on one pairing above the others.

(now obviously that’s a genre specific example but just making it so you and your partners characters have a reason to interact without romance is important. It could help curb the tendency to focus on one pairing if there are other things bringing the characters together.)

I feel like the way OP worded the question, and also in most doubling that I'm aware of, is that these two RPs are taking place in different scenes if not different universes/continuities entirely.

Realistically, you can absolutely treat roleplay the same way as in romantic literature - by not doubling.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Crayons I think I wasnt clear.

If the goal is merely to focus on a romantic pairing your best bet is to just write the main pairing with your partner and allow them to add NPCs in to flesh out the world.

If you want to double than ensure that there is enough plot to justify having four main characters and make sure that plot isn’t solely focused on romance.

As the problem with one character getting all the attention is tied to how romance is written. The main love interests are always gong to get the most focus, it’s just how the story works.

So if you want there to be two equal romances there has to be some kind of plot in place that puts the four characters on equal footing. Whether that takes place in one or two threads isn’t super important. What is important is that no character exists solely to be the love interest for another.